(Austin) The nice move: Max Verstappen (Red Bull) won the United States Grand Prix on Sunday in Austin, accentuating his lead at the top of the Formula 1 World Championship over the usual master of the house, Lewis Hamilton ( Mercedes), who followed him in second place.
After this 17e round of 22, the Dutchman, whose first success in Texas, is 8 wins this season – 18 since the start of his career – and now has 12 points better than the Englishman, who will wait to add to his CV a sixth victory on the circuit of the Americas.
The latter, looking at 36 years old for a record eighth crown allowing him to overtake the Hall of Fame of pilots Michael Schumacher, will have to pull himself together in Mexico in two weeks, so as not to let his young competitor of 24 years who dreams escape. , him, to be sacred for the first time.
The Dutchman, who started in a leading position just in front of the Englishman and who had assured the day before not to “worry about what is going on behind”, should however have, because Hamilton, who had announced that he wanted to do everything to take the best departure, kept his word.
And although Verstappen tried to lock him inside, Hamilton was able to pass the corner first, forcing the Dutchman to have to step aside, out of bounds. Better launched, Sergio Pérez could have taken advantage of it, but he logically prohibited himself from overtaking his teammate.
Paid strategy
“As I lost a place at the start, we had to try something [en s’arrêtant le premier aux puits], I was not sure it would work. The last laps were nice, full slide on the fast corners, but it was really nice that it worked, ”commented the winner of the day hot.
Verstappen has indeed changed tires twice, at the 11e and 30e laps, either before Hamilton, passed in the pits at 14e and 38e turns. A strategy that paid off since in the end, the Dutchman kept his leadership, despite the sharp rise of his competitor who followed him a second behind in the last two laps.
“Congratulations to Max, he’s doing a hell of a good job, it was a really tough race. I got off to a good start, we made the right decisions [sur les arrêts au puit], but they were the best today. I gave the maximum ”, reacted Hamilton.
Half an hour earlier, when he was chasing Verstappen, the tone was much drier with his team manager Toto Wolff on the radio. “You’re running for victory, Lewis,” his team manager had urged, to which his pilot replied: “Leave it to me, brother, thank you. ”
140,000 fans present
Contested under a less intense heat than the two previous days, with the sun appearing right at the start after a light morning drizzle quickly dried on the track, the race was thus intense at the very beginning and at the very end, but not subject to friction.
Friday, during the second free practice session, Verstappen had called Hamilton a “kind of idiot” and handed him his middle finger, after his rival refused to let him pass after a near wheel to wheel. seconds, showing that neither of them was ready to ease off even in a non-stakes lap.
Under the eyes of 140,000 spectators, who will have been 380,000 in total since Friday according to the organizers, including some VIPs including the tennis star Serena Williams, the former glory of the NBA Shaquille O’Neal or the creator of the Star Wars saga George Lucas and actor Ben Stiller, third place went to Pérez.
With two drivers on the podium, Red Bull is having an almost perfect weekend in their fight for the constructors’ title with Mercedes, whose second rider, Finland’s Valtteri Bottas, finished sixth. The Silver Arrows are now only 23 points ahead.