LUCIL, Qatar — It seems so. Max Verstappen He is at his best when he has a point to prove. Even for a driver who works consistently in a league of his own, he is able to access another level of ruthless performance in those moments when he is truly fired up, and Qatar Grand Prix on Sunday The weekend was a prime example.
The catalyst came on Saturday evening when his first pole position in 11 grands prix was stripped by the stewards with a dubious one-place penalty. The end result was a race win regardless of the penalty, and a win that had seemed impossible earlier that week.
“Karma is an amazing thing,” Verstappen’s race engineer Gianpiro Lambias said on team radio as the victorious Red Bull crossed the line. Even with the title wrapped up last weekend in Las Vegas, the victory — the 63rd of his career — still counts for a lot.
Rewind 24 hours and Verstappen drove down the same pit straight thinking he had secured pole position – his first for a Grand Prix since the Austrian Grand Prix in June. It was a particularly hard-fought pole position, which saw Mercedes beat out. George Russell By 0.055s despite struggling with the handling of his Red Bull during the weekend’s sprint qualifying and sprint races.
“Aggressive” set-up changes before Grand Prix qualifying helped correct the handling imbalance Verstappen had felt in the sprint sessions, and suddenly his Red Bull felt “connected” for the first time in a long time. What did
“It couldn’t have been worse. [in the sprint]. So we just looked at it and, it’s not all that clear, but we’re like, ‘Okay, we’ve got to go and try it. [setup] direction,” he explained. “We put it on the car and it worked. Yes, a miracle happened!
“When you’re fighting Haas in the sprint for the win in the main race, yeah, that’s a pretty big swing in performance!”
It was then difficult for Pete to take all that hard work away from a stewards’ decision, especially one that is largely unprecedented.
Drivers are regularly scrutinized by stewards to drive slowly as they prepare for qualifying laps, but mitigating circumstances such as traffic or passing a car mean they almost always have to. is left alone. In Verstappen’s case in Qatar, he was slow to give permission. Fernando Alonso And Lando Norris Pass when Russell, also on the preparation lap, filled his mirrors in the middle of Turn 12.
Not only did the stewards find that Verstappen had fallen outside the delta time, which measures whether drivers are taking too much time on a preparation lap, and was therefore “unnecessarily slow”. Shouted”, but doing so created a dangerous situation with Russell. Hence a one-place penalty when other drivers have been let down in the past.
Unsurprisingly, Verstappen disagreed with the assessment, but Russell lobbied the stewards’ office on Saturday night for a penalty that really bothered him.
“I find it funny how we want to make sure I get a penalty,” he told Dutch TV on Sunday evening. “You know what it is? He does a decent job here in front of the camera, but when you talk to him in person he’s a different person.
“I can’t afford it. In that case you can do better,” Verstappen said.
With his fourth consecutive championship now in the bag, it seems Verstappen’s filter, once loosely in place, has now been completely removed.
“I couldn’t believe I got the penalty,” he later said at an FIA press conference. “But in a way, I was like, yeah, I’m not surprised anymore in the world that I live in. I didn’t want to push anybody to prepare their lap, and by doing that, the basic Being nice gets you fined and that’s what I tried to explain but I felt like I was talking to a brick wall.
Feeling that he was not being heard, Verstappen decided to have his say on the track on race day.
As he lined up on the grid, he positioned his Red Bull to block Russell’s path into Turn 1, and after taking an excellent route he took the inside line and edged the Mercedes out of the corner. Grazed to the side of the track at the exit. The move almost opened the door for Norris to take advantage and gain position on both Russell and Verstappen, but once again, his Red Bull’s excellent positioning ensured that Verstappen came out on top.
With Russell struggling, Verstappen’s race from then on was almost entirely with Norris, and for the most part he struggled to shake off the McLaren. His performance may have looked relaxed from the outside, but Verstappen was cautiously making his way through the laps, knowing that Norris had the advantage on the pit straight leading to overtaking at Turn 1. There may be an opportunity.
“Most of the first stage, I felt pretty good in the first two sectors, but then in the last sector, I think Lando started to push a little bit more from the start of the race and I maybe a little bit more. was handling.” he said. “But then at one point, of course, he tried to close the gap and I had to push even harder in the last sector.
“But I think he was still going too fast in the last corner, which was a bit of a weakness for us in qualifying as well. So, yeah, it almost equaled every lap. Yeah, it was. It was great, just you know, making sure you don’t make any mistakes.”
Further “karma”, at least from Red Bull’s perspective, came Verstappen’s way when Norris was investigated for failing to slow down under yellow flags. The incident happened after that. Alex Albons Williams had one of his wing mirrors aligned at the pit stop and double yellow flags were displayed, presumably because a marshal was preparing to run onto the track to retrieve it.
Verstappen saw the double waved yellow and pulled back, but saw that as he did so, Norris continued to work wide open with his DRS overtaking aid. He was quickly on the team radio to send a message to his friends in the stewards’ office that Norris had broken one of F1’s most important safety rules.
“I mean, I knew I picked up because I saw the double yellow. And I know that, of course, if I hadn’t picked up, it would have been investigated right away,” he said. “So you’re just on it. I mean, yeah, I asked if he picked up because he had DRS, I think, from the backmarker at the same time.
“And then, of course, when we came out of Turn 1, I saw that he was very close. So I asked the team to check on him. I mean, it was just a simple question. And I know. Yes, of course with the double yellow, they are quite tough.”
It took several laps for officials to investigate the incident, but when they did, Norris’ rights were struck. A 10-second drive-through penalty was issued, short of a disqualification, as severe a penalty as the F1 rulebook allows.
From that point on, the victory was undoubtedly Verstappen’s. A gutsy win in some ways, but one that Verstappen will no doubt be proud of.
“It’s been good,” he said. “I mean, it’s still not where I would like it to be in terms of the car’s behavior compared to last year, but at least now we’re back in the fight to win the race.
“So if we can just learn from this year’s car, of course take the positives from last year and try to build a better car, I’m sure we can be very competitive again next year.”