The Austrian Grand Prix offers the perfect antidote to Dutch world champion Max Verstappen’s frustration at the final round at Silverstone as he races the eleventh round of the Formula One World Championship at the home of his Red Bull team.
“Mad Max” entered his name on the list of winners at the Austrian-owned circuit (Red Bull Ring) after he crushed the competition last year by winning the Austrian and Styrian Grands Prix, respectively, held at the same circuit.
After those two victories, Verstappen raised his tally to four wins out of 7 at the shortest first class circuit and 26 victories in his track record, and this year he has the opportunity to reach the highest threshold on the podium twice after deciding to host the Red Bull Circuit for one of the three sprint races scheduled for this year.
The 100km sprint gives the winner a chance to score 8 points, with Verstappen back as the favorite for first place on Sunday, returning from Austria with a full harvest (34 points).
At the age of 24, Verstappen is looking to retain his title for a second year, especially since he has a plan: “I can stop in 2028,” he told Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf.
The Dutch driver loves sprints as he won the first race of its kind at Italy’s Imola circuit and added the fastest lap of the race to his Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix record 24 hours later.
A repeat of that feat would only be the catalyst after a grueling time for the Red Bull driver in the epic British Grand Prix, when a wrecked Alpha Tauri came to a halt after teammates Yuki Tsunoda and Frenchman Pierre Gasly struggled to claim their seventh race win. season Of the 10 races, he finished seventh.
At the start of a new generation of F1 cars, Verstappen led the drivers’ standings with 181 points, 34 points ahead of his Mexican counterpart, Sergio “Chico” Pérez, who won on the streets of the Principality of Monaco, and 43 points behind Ferrari. Monaco’s Charles Leclerc, who seemed angry at his team’s strategies for favoring his Spanish counterpart Carlos Sainz to open last at Silverstone, his tally of first-category wins.
The last victory of Leclerc, who finished fourth in the last round, belongs to Australia, that is, 3 months ago.
Pérez tried to wrest the lead from science while homeowner Lewis Hamilton, a seven-time world champion, waited for his rivals to snatch their ninth Silverstone win and their first of the season, but failing to do so, he was content with the car he made extensive modifications that allowed him to beat Red Bull and Ferrari to finish third, and failed to end his negative streak without winning 11 races in a row.
– Mercedes will beat adults? –
Silverstone fans booed Verstappen and made clear their dissatisfaction with the Red Bull rider stripping The Walk of his record-breaking eighth title last year, prompting Britain’s Christian Horner right before the race this weekend to say: “Maybe we’ll have a warmer reception than there.”
Spielberg’s track is not a Mercedes track and Austrian manager Toto Wolff confirmed this, saying “It’s a completely different track than Silverstone and it didn’t always work for us in the past.”
Aside from the fast corners at Silverstone, the Austrian circuit with its “slow” corners is not a dream come true for Mercedes, which has only won twice in six races since 2018.
Although the summer is moving into the Austrian mountains and the snow is melting, it will be orange as thousands of Dutch fans are likely to gather this weekend.
Verstappen urged his fans not to react to Hamilton fans’ provocations, telling De Telegraaf: “They shouldn’t be doing this for me. It doesn’t seem like it gives me extra strength or anything like that.”
On the other hand, at Silverstone, Mercedes had tangible evidence that its attempts to rid the volatile Silver Arrow of rebound flaws were paying off.
But the question is: will Hamilton get a chance to beat the big guys? After being dominated by Red Bull (7 wins) and Ferrari (3) at the start of the year, the German team is looking to turn the reality of podiums (3 each for Hamilton and his colleague George Russell) into victories.
– “See you in Austria!” –
“We’ll keep our heads low, prepare as best as we can and hopefully build on Silverstone’s momentum,” Wolf said.
Wolff confirmed that Hamilton, who is at the top of the race for the first time this season and is in contention for first place, had a “brilliant” race last Sunday and that the team is “proud of the character” shown by a colleague. Rookie Russell.
The world of Formula 1 paid tribute to Russell’s sporting act when he decided to stop his car on the track and go to the scene of an accident in which Chinese Jiguo Guanyu suffered a terrible accident after his Alfa Romeo rolled over and crossed the road. a tire barrier to place above the last barrier separating the track from the fans.
Guanyu praised the single-seat car’s safety factors and halo protection system for saving his life, tweeting after the crash, “Now more than ever I want to get back on track. See you in Austria!”
With the introduction of the sprint race, the traditional racing system is changing: the first free practice period and qualification for the sprint race take place on Friday, followed by a second free practice period that determines the starting grid for Sunday’s race.
Source: El Iktisad