Champ’s misery turns to triumph
Verstappen beats rocky start to finish first in Spain
Nothing was going right for Max Verstappen at the Spanish Grand Prix — the wind had blown his car off course, his Red Bull was struggling, and top rival Charles Leclerc seemed headed for a sure victory.
His fortunes turned when Leclerc lost power and his Ferrari suddenly sputtered to a near stop.
Then Verstappen’s own Red Bull team intervened by ordering Sergio Perez to get out of Verstappen’s way. The reigning Formula One champion went from minimising damage yesterday to winning the race and reclaiming the points lead.
“Not an easy start to the race but we turned it around,” Verstappen said after his fourth win of the season, third consecutive. Then the Dutchman thanked Perez, who might have won himself but settled for second on Red Bull’s team orders. “He is a great teammate,” Verstappen said. Perez took over the lead after Leclerc, who started from the pole and led the first 27 laps, lost power. But with 17 laps remaining, Red Bull told him to get out of Verstappen’s way.
“It’s unfair but okay,” said Perez, who was denied the ability to race for his third career F1 victory.
The stakes were too high for Red Bull and Verstappen, who trailed Leclerc by 19 points ahead of the race but now holds a six-point advantage in defence of his first world championship. Perez, who registered the fastest lap yesterday, is third in the standings and 19 points behind Leclerc.
“I’m happy for the team but we need to speak later,” Perez told his team by radio after the finish.
Leclerc, meanwhile, had a terrific start and easily cleared Verstappen and controlled the race until Lap 27. “No! No! No! What happened?” he screamed on his radio. Once out of his Ferrari, he said it was an engine failure. “I lost engine power and had to stop,” Leclerc said. “I don’t know what the problem is yet, but it hurts.”
Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto said the team was investigating.
“The car has performed well, its pace was good. We had this problem of reliability that we will have to analyse and resolve, but the season is long and we have a car that is very strong,” Binotto said.
It closed a terrible day for Ferrari, who started first and third but Carlos Sainz Jnr was gobbled up at the start and dropped to sixth before the first turn. Seeking a win in his home grand prix, Sainz later was blown off course by the wind in the same spot as Verstappen but rallied to finish fourth.
Sainz was beaten by George Russell, who finished third for his second podium of the season with Mercedes. Russell also had an impressive battle with Perez and Verstappen and held the champion up as the Dutchman tried to recover from his spin.
Mercedes had won the race the past five consecutive years with Lewis Hamilton, and the seventime champion finished fifth yesterday. He’d fallen to the back of the grid on the opening lap because of contact with Kevin Magnussen at the start and Hamilton had to stop for new tyres.
Mercedes have struggled in the first six races of the season as their new 2022 car is still a work in progress. Russell, in his first season with Mercedes, has beaten Hamilton in five of the races.
“It was a very pleasing weekend with lots of positive signs, even though I’m not yet ecstatic,” said Mercedes head Toto Wolff. “With Lewis, we had probably the fastest race car of all. George put up a spectacular defence to Max, the way he positioned the car was spot-on, the kind of racing we love to see, and he managed the car well at the end to bring home another podium.”