Verstappen’s antics set up Ricciardo win
Red Bull driver rounded on for Vettel collision Team-mate triumphs as Hamilton finishes fourth
The great and good of Formula One rounded on Max Verstappen last night after the Dutchman’s aggressive driving took centre stage again following a dramatic Chinese Grand Prix.
Despite Daniel Ricciardo pulling off a Red Bull tactical masterstroke to secure a quite remarkable win, it was the style deployed by his teammate that dominated the paddock discourse for a second weekend in succession.
Verstappen collided with Lewis Hamilton in Bahrain in the previous race, but here yesterday it was Sebastian Vettel who felt the full force of the brilliant but overexuberant Dutchman.
The German, who was second in his Ferrari at the time of the coming together during a frenetic finale sparked by the deployment of a safety car, limped over the line in eighth. It enabled Hamilton, himself fortunate to finish fourth after what he himself labelled a disastrous weekend, to reduce the gap in the championship race from 17 to only nine points.
Verstappen and Ricciardo had carved their way to the front after an inspired gamble by Red Bull team principal Christian Horner to haul both of his drivers in for fresh tyres after Brendon Hartley and Pierre Gasly tangled and the safety car was sent out.
It provided both men with the advantage of quicker, fresher tyres than their rivals, but as Ricciardo excelled in picking off Kimi Raikkonen, Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas in an overtaking masterclass, Verstappen faltered.
He ran off the road following an ambitious move round the outside of Hamilton at the high-speed turn seven. Although he got past the Briton one lap later, his hairpin lunge on Vettel was desperate. Late on the brakes, he thudded into him and sent them both into a spin.
“I don’t need to say anything here,” said Vettel on the radio as he pointed the blame at Verstappen.
The stewards agreed, hitting the Red Bull driver with a 10-second penalty which demoted him to fifth.
“It was completely Max’s fault,” said Niki Lauda, Mercedes’ nonexecutive chairman and three-time world champion. “When you compete in more races you should get more clever – especially when you want to win or challenge for the championship – but he is going the other way. He needs to sort himself out. Nobody can help him.”
Verstappen may be only 20, but he has started 63 grands prix and is a three-time winner. This is his fourth season. “He is not young,” Lauda added. “He is old in Formula One now, so he is like everybody else. It is not necessary because it hurts him as well.”
Ricciardo, eight years’ Verstappen’s senior, showed far greater maturity than his teammate, with bold moves on Hamilton and then Bottas that were executed with millimetre precision.
Verstappen apologised to Vettel in the immediate aftermath of another spellbinding instalment of this new and unpredictable season, but the incident could prove costly
in the Ferrari driver’s pursuit of a fifth world championship.
“In that situation he has to change his style, otherwise it will happen again,” Vettel warned.
“I said to him afterwards, ‘Look, the race is long and you threw your podium away’.
“It is not a question of age because he has done so many races now. I gave him room; I wasn’t planning on resisting, but he had a big lock-up and that is why we crashed. We are not happy because we had the car to win.”
Hamilton cast a downbeat figure in the Mercedes’ hospitality suite as he faced up to another disappointing weekend, but he can take some comfort from Verstappen’s wild ways limiting the damage to his title prospects. “I am thankful for the way he drives because it meant we did not lose too many points,” Hamilton said with a wry smile.
Christian Horner, unsurprisingly, moved to defend his young driver. “He has put his hand up and apologised,” the Red Bull principal said. “He has made mistakes, but he will have learnt an awful lot and will put that to good use in coming races.
Ricciardo made no mistake when handed the opportunity to seal his first victory since last June’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
“I don’t seem to win boring races,’’ said the Australian, who nearly started from the back of the grid following an engine failure in practice on Saturday.