Can anyone stop Max Verstappen from marching to a maiden title? Defending champion Lewis Hamilton has his doubts.
Episode 55 presented by Pagnian Imports, features former F1® racer, World Endurance Championship winner and Sky Sports TV analyst Anthony Davidson joins us to dissect the Austrian Grand Prix, assess whether Red Bull and Max Verstappen can be stopped for this year’s title, ponder Lewis Hamilton’s two-year contract renewal and talk about the differences between modern F1® machinery and state-of-the-art simulators.
Max Verstappen is on a roll. With pole, victory, every lap led and the fastest lap of the race, the Dutchman has taken total control of the title.
Featuring Matt Clayton, co-host of In the Fast Lane and F1 freelance journalist.
Max Verstappen’s third straight win was his easiest yet, his lights to flag victory with fastest lap, having never ceded the lead, delivering him his first grand slam of his career.
Max Verstappen has won back-to-back races in Austria to blow out his title lead over Lewis Hamilton.
Max Verstappen extended his championship lead over Lewis Hamilton to more than the value of a full race win after a comfortable victory at the Austrian Grand Prix.
Verstappen was completely unchallenged at the Red Bull Ring, leading every lap from pole and taking a point for fastest lap to grow his title lead to 32 points over Hamilton, who finished an ineffectual fourth.
The die was cast for Hamilton in the first 20 laps, when he struggled to pass Lando Norris, who started second on the grid and drove superbly to hold his own among the front-runners.
Continue reading on RACERSame track, same result: Max Verstappen took pole comfortably from Mercedes for the second round at the Red Bull Ring, though some late brilliance from Lando Norris threatened to upend the form guide for the Austrian Grand Prix.
Max Verstappen will start on pole for the third race in a row after pipping surprise front row starter Lando Norris at the Austrian Grand Prix.
Max Verstappen beat a sensational Lando Norris to score a third straight pole position, while Lewis Hamilton qualified fourth on an unpredictable Saturday afternoon at the Austrian Grand Prix.
Verstappen started the hour as pole favorite after dominating last weekend’s Styrian Grand Prix at the same circuit, and the Dutchman took provisional pole after the first runs of Q3l but his second lap was poor, and he failed to improve.
Norris, wringing the maximum from his McLaren car, was on the attack just behind the Dutchman and benefiting from the slipstream. The Briton was already second after his first pole attempt and went purple at the first split with his final flyer to project himself onto pole.
Continue reading on RACERMax Verstappen returned Red Bull Racing to the top of the time sheet in a warm final practice at the Austrian Grand Prix. The Dutchman’s best time of 1m 4.591s around the Red Bull Ring beat Valtteri Bottas’s best by 0.538s to put him in the box seat for pole later today.
Lewis Hamilton was third and 0.686s off the pace after having his best lap on fresh softs deleted for exceeding track limits exiting the final corner, but even that lap would have put his Mercedes around 0.4s behind Verstappen’s benchmark, just ahead of Bottas.
The soft compound was in almost universal use through the 60-minute session ahead of qualifying. Pirelli is using its most delicate tire, the C5, as this weekend’s soft compound, and with warm weather rolling in after a mild Friday and track temperatures nudging 120 degrees F, rubber preparation for a flying lap will be key to executing a clean qualifying lap.
Continue reading on RACERLewis Hamilton reasserted Mercedes’s credentials at the top of the time sheet with the fastest lap of second practice at the Austrian Grand Prix.
Hamilton struggled to string together a competitive time without exceeding track limits during the morning session, but with a fresh set of softs in the afternoon the Briton logged a time of 1m04.523s. His teammate, Valtteri Bottas, followed 0.189s behind, while Max Verstappen, quickest in FP1, was third and 0.217s off the pace.
The unsettled weather that has dominated the Red Bull Ring since Formula 1 arrived in Austria last week threatened to break shortly after the Dutchman set his quickest time a little after halfway through the 60-minute session, with rain affecting particularly in the first two sectors.
Continue reading on RACERMax Verstappen topped first practice ahead of both Ferrari drivers at the Austrian Grand Prix.
The Dutchman, winner of last weekend’s Styrian Grand Prix at the same circuit, set his best time of 1m05.143s on the soft compound to go 0.266s quicker than Charles Leclerc, who was just 0.022s faster than Ferrari teammate Carlos Sainz despite complaining of several right-front lock-ups.
Valtteri Bottas was 0.3s behind in the lead Mercedes, while Lewis Hamilton was more than half a second off the pace in seventh after repeatedly falling foul of track limits.
Continue reading on RACERCan Red Bull Racing and Max Verstappen withstand the expected Mercedes fightback? I preview the upcoming French, Styrian and Austrian grands prix with last year’s podcast guests: In the Fast Lane‘s Matt Clayton, GP Racing‘s Stuart Codling and ESPN’s Laurence Edmondson.