Max 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 RACERMax Verstappen easily accounted for championship rival Lewis Hamilton with a straightforward victory at the Styrian Grand Prix to grow his points lead.
The Dutchman’s victory was effectively sealed with his perfect getaway from pole. He kept the Mercedes driver at bay into the first turn and built a 1.5s buffer in the first three laps, ensuring the Briton couldn’t use DRS to follow him away from the field.
The gap was gently stretched throughout the first stint until Hamilton made the first stop of the pair, on Lap 29, for a set of hard tires. Verstappen had no trouble covering the move, the undercut being far less effective around the short Red Bull Ring.
Continue reading on RACERMax Verstappen blitzed qualifying for the Styrian Grand Prix to put Red Bull Racing on pole at the Red Bull Ring. The Dutchman needed only his first flying lap in the top-10 shootout to set an unassailable time of 1m03.841s ahead of title rival Lewis Hamilton.
Hamilton attempted to improve with his second flyer, but congestion in the final sector of his warm-up lap left him ill prepared and the Briton could not improve.
Instead it was Valtteri Bottas in the second Mercedes who emerged as Verstappen’s challenger after a compromised first lap, but though the Finn set three personal best sectors, he was still 0.194s shy of the benchmark.
Continue reading on RACERLewis Hamilton broke Max Verstappen’s practice streak by topping the final session ahead of qualifying at the Styrian Grand Prix.
Hamilton’s best time of 1m04.369s was 0.204s quicker than Verstappen’s best effort, although the Dutchman’s final flying lap, attempted in the final 10 minutes when the circuit was at its fastest, was hamstrung by traffic at Turn 3, leaving him 0.155s down in the first sector.
The bulk of Verstappen’s advantage over the weekend to date has been in the power-sensitive first sector, where his Honda power unit is best able to stretch its legs.
Continue reading on RACERMax Verstappen swept Friday practice for Red Bull Racing, but the Dutchman benefited from Lewis Hamilton having his best lap deleted for track limits.
The Dutchman’s best time of 1m05.412s in his Red Bull was 0.077s slower than Hamilton’s fastest lap, but the Briton was found by the stewards to have run too far wide at Turn 10 and subsequently had the time erased. Hamilton’s next-best time was good enough for only fourth, 0.384s adrift.
His Mercedes teammate, Valtteri Bottas, also attracted the attention of the stewards, albeit for the far more serious transgression of spinning in the pit lane.
Continue reading on RACERMax Verstappen opened the Austrian doubleheader with the quickest time of first practice for the Styrian Grand Prix.
Verstappen, winner of last weekend’s French Grand Prix, took his Red Bull Racing car to the top of the time sheet with a time of 1m05.910s. Pierre Gasly made the session a Red Bull-back 1-2, albeit with the sister AlphaTauri car, 0.256s further back.
Mercedes teammates Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas followed, the pair closely matched at around 0.45s off the leading Dutchman’s pace.
Continue reading on RACERMax Verstappen overcame Lewis Hamilton to take victory in the French Grand Prix with a late charge from fourth to extend his championship lead.
The Dutchman passed Hamilton for the win on the penultimate lap, the fifth change of the lead in the race, after an inspired gamble on a second tire change gave the Red Bull Racing driver almost 20 seconds to make up on the Briton’s Mercedes with 20 laps to run.
It was a replay in reverse of the Spanish Grand Prix, where Mercedes had played a similar blinder against Red Bull Racing to secure victory.
Continue reading on RACERMax Verstappen will head the French Grand Prix grid after beating Lewis Hamilton in a duel for pole position.
The Dutchman started the qualifying hour as the form man after final practice, but Hamilton’s mechanics were busy making changes to the Briton’s Mercedes as the session began to cure its uneasiness on the soft tire.
After the pair’s first laps in Q3 Verstappen led the way, his advantage a seemingly unimpeachable 0.4s. Hamilton, however, had more than that up his sleeve for his second lap and improved enough to pinch what would have been provisional pole — only for the Red Bull Racing driver to find an extra 0.3s with his only own attempt and seal the deal.
Continue reading on RACERMax Verstappen narrowly bested Valtteri Bottas for the fastest time of an intriguing second practice for the French Grand Prix at the Circuit Paul Ricard, despite the two drivers using different tire compounds.
Verstappen came through late with a lap on the soft tire to top Bottas by just 0.008s, but neither Bottas nor Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton could keep the grippiest compound alive for long enough to set a contending time.
Bottas’s best effort was instead set on the medium compound — his best on the soft was more than 0.3s off the pace — while Hamilton was 0.253s adrift on the qualifying rubber.
Continue reading on RACERValtteri Bottas opened the French Grand Prix with the fastest time of first practice, but his Mercedes team was fuming about high curbs damaging his car.
Bottas had a 0.335s advantage over teammate Lewis Hamilton, but he was an early victim of the aggressive curbs dotted around the track, incurring damage to his front wing and requiring his first spare to be fitted just minutes into the session.
Circuit Paul Ricard has had a series of narrow, tall “baguette” curbs installed just beyond the regular red and white strips to deter drivers from running wide over the track’s vast expanses of asphalt, but they proved to be car destroyers based on the first hour of running.
Continue reading on RACERSergio Perez claimed his second career grand prix victory and first for Red Bull Racing after teammate Max Verstappen suffered an explosive tire failure from the lead with five laps to go.
Verstappen’s left-rear tire punctured at 195mph halfway down the start-finish straight while cruising with a four-second advantage over Perez and title rival Lewis Hamilton. It was the second tire failure of the afternoon, with Lance Stroll suffering a near identical crash at speed on the same hard compound after 31 laps. Verstappen’s tires were 33 laps old.
Pirelli will analyze the remains of the stricken tires before ascribing a cause for the failures.
Continue reading on RACERCharles Leclerc has taken back-to-back pole positions after red flags brought a chaotic qualifying for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix to an early end.
Leclerc had taken provisional pole with his first flying lap — in no small part thanks to a substantial slipstream from Lewis Hamilton — to set up what should have been a tight conclusion with the second runs. But the shootout was halted with just a second remaining on the clock when Yuki Tsunoda smacked his AlphaTauri into the barrier at Turn 3, partially blocking the track. Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, immediately behind him on the track, tried to take avoiding action but locked up, spinning himself into the wall in the run-off zone.
Red flags were waved for the fourth time of the afternoon and the session was abandoned, handing Leclerc a second consecutive pole.
Continue reading on RACERPierre Gasly topped final practice at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix after pole favorite Max Verstappen crashed out of the session less than halfway through.
Verstappen was only five laps into his program on the hard tire when he carried too much speed into Turn 15 on the fast run down the hill, coming to a halt with his right-front tire in the barrier.
Unable to engage reverse and anyway with a broken track rod, the devastated Dutchman left his car in situ, prompting a red flag. TV cameras caught him slumped and collecting his thoughts on a concrete block before returning to pit lane.
Continue reading on RACERChampionship leader Max Verstappen topped both Ferrari drivers to put Red Bull Racing at the head of first practice at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Verstappen’s lap came late in the session, having run the harder compounds early when the street track was at its dirtiest, but his time of 1m43.184s beat Charles Leclerc by just 0.043s.
The Dutchman was comfortably quickest in the first sector but lost time to the Ferrari driver at the second split, which comprises mostly slow-speed corners around the castle section of the track. He lost a little time to his personal best out of the final corner for not having a car to slipstream over the line.
Continue reading on RACERSergio Perez and Max Verstappen led the way in second practice for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix on an afternoon neither Mercedes finished inside the top 10.
Perez topped teammate Verstappen by just 0.101s to complete a Red Bull Racing Friday practice sweep, while Lewis Hamilton was just 11th and 1.041s off the pace.
“I don’t really know where all the time is,” lamented the Briton after his flying lap, though tire temperature management appeared to be a problem, as it had been in Monaco. His teammate, Valtteri Bottas, fared even worse, stuck in 16th and a further second adrift.
Continue reading on RACERMax Verstappen has taken the lead of the Formula 1 World Championship for the first time in his career after dominating the Monaco Grand Prix while title rival Lewis Hamilton struggled to a seventh-place finish.
Red Bull Racing’s Verstappen qualified second behind Charles Leclerc but gained a place before the race even started when Ferrari withdrew the Monegasque from the grand prix with a driveshaft problem related to his Q3 crash the night before.
The Dutchman aced his getaway from de facto pole to claim the lead, slicing defensively to the right to block the fast-starting Valtteri Bottas on the way to the first turn, and controlled the race thereafter, leading every lap of the grand prix in an imperious reassertion of his championship credentials with a four-point lead.
Continue reading on RACERCharles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz elevated Ferrari to an unlikely session-topping performance in Friday afternoon practice at the Monaco Grand Prix.
Monaco native Leclerc was among the last to set his fastest time, his best effort coming with 20 minutes remaining, to set a fastest time of 1m11.684s. It was a strong rebound result for the 23-year-old, who retired from first practice with a gearbox problem after only four laps.
Teammate Sainz consolidated on his second place from the morning to finish second again the afternoon, the Spaniard looking thoroughly comfortable around the city streets. After running a long 14-lap stint on the hard tire in the morning — he was the only driver to try that compound in the afternoon — he set a time 0.112s shy of his teammate.
Continue reading on RACERLewis Hamilton and Mercedes-Benz beat Max Verstappen and Red Bull to victory at the Spanish Grand Prix with a strategic masterstroke after losing the lead on the first lap.
Pole winner Hamilton started alongside Verstappen on the front row of the grid, but the Dutchman got the better start to go side by side into the first turn. He had the inside line and used the full width of the track to force Hamilton to yield or risk damage to his front wing to seize first place.
The news got worse for Mercedes. Valtteri Bottas, starting from third, slipped to fourth behind Charles Leclerc, the Ferrari driver sweeping around the Finn’s outside through the long Turn 3 in a beautiful first-lap move to split him from the front-runners.
Continue reading on RACER