Max Verstappen led a disrupted first practice session at the Austrian Grand Prix ahead of qualifying later today.
Verstappen looked comfortable at the head of the field for much of the crucial hour and ended his program 0.255s quicker than Charles Leclerc, with a best lap of 1m 6.302s. But no driver squeezed their complete programs into the 60-minute session thanks to two red flags that interrupted running.
The first was for Lando Norris, who parked his McLaren at the side of the road after reporting smoke emanating from beneath his seat, ending his session.
Continue reading on RACERMax Verstappen has fended off a fast-finishing Carlos Sainz to win the Canadian Grand Prix and grow his championship lead.
Verstappen had led Sainz for much of the race after acing his getaway from pole, while the Spaniard lost crucial early seconds stuck behind Fernando Alonso.
Unable to recover the difference on track, the race turned into a potentially strategic grandstand finish when Verstappen made a second pit stop on lap 43, his hard tires aching from a 34-lap stint after an ambitiously early lap 8 stop during a virtual safety car.
Continue reading on RACERMax Verstappen has mastered treacherous conditions in Montreal to take pole position ahead of an outstanding Fernando Alonso at the Canadian Grand Prix.
Verstappen was in a class of his own all afternoon as the track transitioned from soaking wet to almost dry enough for slick rubber.
The Dutchman reeled off three quick laps on intermediate tires, lowering the benchmark by 1.2s through the 12 minutes. Either of his last two would have locked him in for pole, but the final one — a 1m21.299s — got the job done with a 0.645s buffer over Alonso.
Continue reading on RACERMax Verstappen has pipped Charles Leclerc to top spot in FP2 to sweep Friday practice at the Canadian Grand Prix.
Verstappen looked comfortable immediately on his short run to set the benchmark at 1m14.127s.
Leclerc, who spent the entire session on the soft compound, built up to his ultimate time before clocking in just 0.081s behind.
Continue reading on RACERMax Verstappen topped a blustery first practice session at the Canadian Grand Prix.
Red Bull’s world champion ended the session 0.246s clear of the field after a couple of minor niggles through the hour. The first was an apparent anti-rollbar misconfiguration halfway through the session that required him to pit after three-wheeling over some curbs, and near the end of practice he complained that his power unit’s electrical deployment was clipping at the end of the straights.
Carlos Sainz was next in the order for Ferrari, just 0.1s ahead of Alpine’s Fernando Alonso — whose car was rapid in the flat-out third sector, which comprises just the hairpin and the final chicane. The Spaniard also used the medium tire for his fastest lap, while the rest of the field set their best times on softs.
Continue reading on RACERMax Verstappen empathized with title rival Charles Leclerc’s crippling run of engine failures but says that his team has done a better job of improving his car’s reliability.
Verstappen opened the season with two engine failures in the first three rounds and has suffered a variety of more minor technical niggles throughout his campaign, but he’s yet to finish off the podium when he’s seen the flag, collecting five victories and a third place.
Leclerc, on the other hand, has seen his rock-solid early-season reliability melt away, with two engine retirements of his own in the last three weekends as well as a strategy misstep that cost him victory in Monaco.
Continue reading on RACERMax Verstappen has blown open his championship lead with a comfortable victory in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix after both Ferrari drivers retired with mechanical failures.
The race was bubbling into a strategic thriller, with pole-getter Charles Leclerc having made an early pit stop during a virtual safety car on lap 9. The track-wide caution was triggered by Carlos Sainz, whose power unit suffered a hydraulic failure that forced him to park up in the run-off area at Turn 4.
Sergio Perez, having jumped Leclerc for the lead on the first lap, stayed out ahead of teammate Verstappen for a more conventional one-stop strategy that would have squeezed the Monegasque at the end of the race. But the tactics never had a chance to play out, with Leclerc’s power unit popping in the final sector after just 20 laps, forcing him into a costly retirement, his second in three races after the Spanish Grand Prix.
Continue reading on RACERSergio Perez was in a pole-getting mood on Saturday afternoon in Baku but was left to lament a fuel problem that left the Red Bull driver unable to compete with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.
Perez and Leclerc had traded quickest time throughout practice and qualifying in Azerbaijan, and the pole shootout was set to go down to the wire when Red Bull Racing realized it had under-fueled the Mexican’s car ahead of the final runs. It meant Perez had to be held in his garage for refueling, and by the time he rejoined the track, he had lost touch with the pack and had to set his lap without the benefit of the powerful slipstream down 1.4-mile straight.
Ultimately missing out to Leclerc by 0.282s, the Mexican was left to wonder what could have been partway through a particularly competitive weekend.
Continue reading on RACERSergio Perez narrowly beat Charles Leclerc in Saturday’s final practice for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
The Mexican’s best time, a 1m43.170s, was only 0.07s quicker than Leclerc’s fastest lap. He was almost 0.14s up on the Monegasque in the first and third sector, the bulk coming along the straight time between Turn 16 and the finish line, but Leclerc halved the difference in the slower middle sector.
Max Verstappen was third and a further 0.2s adrift, though the Dutchman had to abort his first flying lap on soft tires near the end of the session due to yellow flags at Turn 3, flown for an errant Valtteri Bottas.
Continue reading on RACERSergio Perez topped a blustery first practice hour at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix ahead of Charles Leclerc. Perez, who won in Baku last season, set a best lap of 1m45.476s to beat Leclerc by 0.127s.
The Red Bull Racing and Ferrari cars were generating lap time in dramatically different ways. Perez was fastest of all in the straightforward first sector, but Leclerc made is all back with a purple time in the second split, which comprises 11 of the track’s 20 turns.
The last sector, comprising the flat-out run from Turn 16 to the first corner, went Perez’s way by 0.2s, setting the classification in his favor.
Continue reading on RACERMax Verstappen dominated final practice at the British Grand Prix ahead of Red Bull Racing teammate Sergio Perez.
Verstappen had only two stints on track on the soft tire but blitzed the field easily with his second set of the red-walled rubber to set a time of 1m27.901s, which was 0.41s quicker than Perez in a strong rebound for Red Bull Racing after a difficult Friday setting up its upgraded car.
Ferrari was the next-best team, but Charles Leclerc was 0.447s off the pace, almost all of which was lost along the straights, with the red car otherwise a match through the corners.
Continue reading on RACERSergio Perez won a chaotic Monaco Grand Prix in mixed-conditions after polesitter Charles Leclerc conceded the lead in a series of strategic bungles.
The race started 65 minutes late thanks to a burst of heavy rain during the start procedure, and race control got action underway with a rolling start behind the safety car to keep the field on the full wet tire.
Leclerc led Carlos Sainz, Perez, and Max Verstappen easily at the start, but the track was drying quickly, and the timing of the switch to intermediates was looming as the major flashpoint of the race.
Continue reading on RACERSergio Perez blocked Charles Leclerc from whitewashing practice at the Monaco Grand Prixby setting the fastest time in FP3.
The Mexican went to the top of the time sheets by just 0.041s with a lap right at the death of the hour-long session to fire a warning shot across Ferrari’s bows ahead of qualifying.
Perez and Leclerc traded quickest times for the final 10 minutes of the session as they squeezed the final drops of performance from the soft Pirelli rubber.
Continue reading on RACERMax Verstappen has taken the lead of the Formula 1 world championship by six points with victory at the Spanish Grand Prix after Charles Leclerc retired with a power unit problem.
Polesitter Leclerc was cruising with a comfortable 13-second lead when an “unidentified PU issue” forced him to limp back to the pits for his first DNF since last year’s Hungarian Grand Prix.
But it was George Russell, not Verstappen, who inherited the lead when Leclerc abandoned the field.
Continue reading on RACERMax Verstappen won the inaugural Miami Grand Prix after surviving a late-race battle with Charles Leclerc to slash his championship deficit again.
Leclerc started from pole and held first off the line but Verstappen launched to second around the outside of Carlos Sainz, boxing in the Spaniard behind the lead Ferrari, forcing him to concede and instead focus on holding back Sergio Perez from fourth.
The Red Bull Racing car’s straight-line speed then became decisive. Verstappen latched onto the back of Leclerc on lap eight and dragged him through the final sector. The benefit of DRS made for an easy move into Turn 1 at the start of the following lap.
Continue reading on RACERRed Bull’s Sergio Perez beat Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc to the top spot in a sweltering final practice ahead of qualifying for the Miami Grand Prix.
The Mexican set his fastest lap with less than five minutes on the clock, with a rapid final sector in particular taking him to a best time of 1m30.304s, bettering Leclerc’s best by just 0.194s.
Leclerc struggled with his first flying lap on softs when the track was at its hottest, the soft Pirelli rubber squirming as the asphalt topped out at around 130 degrees F, but a late flier as conditions cooled by almost 15 degrees F unlocked more time, popping him into second.
Continue reading on RACERMax Verstappen led a dominant Red Bull one-two at a wet-dry Emilia Romagna Grand Prix after Ferrari imploded on home soil.
Leclerc was running third entering the final 11 laps of the race when Ferrari rolled the dice on a late pit stop to try to apply pressure to leaders Verstappen and Sergio Perez, who had controlled the race from the first lap.
Perez and then Verstappen followed him into the pits on the following two laps, but with an extra lap of temperature in his tires, the Monegasque was suddenly on Perez’s gearbox and attempting to find a way through. But the title leader over-committed through Variante Alta, clambering over the first set of curbs and spinning backwards and into the barriers on exit, damaging his front wing.
Continue reading on RACERMax Verstappen won the first sprint race of the season after passing Charles Leclerc for the lead with two laps to go.
The reigning champion started from pole but launched poorly, gifting Leclerc the lead and allowing him to control much of the race.
But the 21-lap sprint was at the upper range of endurance for the soft-compound tire, and the Ferrari struggled more than the Red Bull machine in the final five laps.
Continue reading on RACER