[ad_1]
SPIELBERG, Austria (AP) – Often criticized for pushing his aggressive racing style too far, Max Verstappen is perfectly bound, he and his Red Bull, to win the Austrian Grand Prix on Sunday. , taking full advantage of one day At the head of the race on visibly deteriorated tires, the Dutch man was mastering his pace to beat the pair of Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen and third place Sebastian Vettel, after Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas withdrew of the race with mechanical problems.
Defending champion Hamilton took the lead in the Formula 1 championship, after falling one point behind Vettel after the ninth of 21 races
Encouraged by tens of thousands of Dutch fans dressed in Orange, Verstappen held its first win of the season and fourth overall.
"In the end, tire management was the most important," said Verstappen, adding that "it was very special" to win in front of so many su pporters. "All weekend, it was great to see so much orange: it's Austria, there are still 10 or 11 hours of Holland."
The victory allowed Verstappen to take fifth place with 93 points. Entering the British GP at Silverstone next week, Vettel now leads with 146, followed by Hamilton. Raikkonen is 45 points behind Vettel in third.
"I needed to catch up, so today was a very good day for me," said Verstappen
. Two years ago, Hamilton and Nico Rosberg crashed one after the other.
Hamilton was ahead from the start but lost his lead following a tactical mistake by his team, which did not place him under virtual security. While most other teams took advantage of the opportunity to switch to tender tires
which dropped to fourth place, Hamilton had to park his car on lap 64, seven lengths from the finish
"We have to understand we went wrong," Hamilton said Red Bull even seemed to be heading for a brace on his home track with Daniel Ricciardo in second place, but the Australian had He was the fastest from the start to take an immediate lead, while Bottas, who started from pole position, struggled to stop after losing the grip of his tires before leaving the race on the 55th lap. A Raikkonen challenge The Ferrari driver was briefly second but was soon overtaken by Bottas and Verstappen
"I had to back off at Turn 1 because the cars were squeezed together, after which the car s & # 39; It's gone well, "said Raik konen. "We had the right car, today, some points were a bit difficult, but it was a good day for the team."
Bottas was the first Mercedes driver to abandoning with a hydraulic defect to his gearbox on lap 14
His exit took the virtual safety car out, slowing down the pace and prohibiting overtaking.
As Red Bulls and Ferraris went to their boxes to change their tires, Mercedes let Hamilton surprise. When the defending champion stopped 10 laps later, he dropped to fourth place.
Mercedes chief strategist James Vowles immediately apologized to Hamilton over the radio for this error. Mercedes-Benz had won the previous four races since the Austrian GP was reinstated to the F1 calendar after a 10-year absence in 2014, with Hamilton and Bottas the only drivers in Sunday's field at [19659002] Having started the season with consecutive wins and adding another victory to Montreal, Vettel is well resumed after a serious setback in as many weeks on Saturday. After hitting Bottas after the start of the French GP last week – and resumed his race from behind the peloton – the accident occurred this time in qualifying, Vettel receiving a penalty of three places to have embarrbaded Carlos Sainz from Renault. 19659005] "Obviously, it would have been nice to start higher, I had no place to go to turn 1 and I lost momentum," Vettel said. "It was a damage limitation but the pace was very good and the tire management was very good, but it could have been better."
Taking advantage of Ricciardo's misadventure of Mercedes and Red Bull, Romain Grosjean led his Haas to fourth place, giving the US team its best finish in an F1 race
at just over 4 , 3 kilometers (2.7 miles), the track in Austria is the shortest of the F1 calendar. It has only nine laps and four long straight lines, with inclines of up to 12 percent.
Source link
