Max Verstappen reassures himself about Red Bull’s pace

Daniel Ricciardo, retirement

The thousands of Australian fans had eyes only for him. The disappointment was therefore even greater: Daniel Ricciardo had a disastrous weekend. Already pushed far back on the grid due to his accident yesterday in Q3, and then the change of his gearbox, the national hero couldn’t even line up on the grid due to a sensor problem with his gearbox.

His mechanics did everything they could to repair in time but the Australian could only start two laps after the rest of the field. The objective was then simply to gather as much data as possible, as Christian Horner explains: « A really frustrating race for Daniel with an issue that seems related to a gearbox sensor that stopped the car in sixth gear during the grid formation lap. It was an incredible effort from the mechanics to get him into the race, no one stopped working on the car. Then we had to hope for safety cars to get him back on the lap. We still decided to let him run and learn from it. »

But it was short-lived as on the 28th lap, his mechanics once again acted up and stopped the car at the exit of the third turn. He then had no choice but to retire, to his great sadness: « Both times, the car just stopped. There was nothing else I could do. But it’s only the first race. Let’s hope we can move forward. I am clearly disappointed, but that’s the way it is. »

Max Verstappen, 5th

The hopes of Red Bull therefore rested from the start on Max Verstappen. The young driver had experienced an isolated qualification, far behind the leading quartet but without any threat from behind. During the race, he was also not threatened by the competition behind him as he had no trouble distancing Romain Grosjean and Felipe Massa.

If he was initially outpaced by Kimi Räikkönen’s Ferrari, he attempted a more aggressive strategy during the tire change, opting for super softs instead of softs. This allowed him to set a series of fast laps to catch up with the Finn. He even temporarily claimed the fastest lap in the race before conceding to his rival of the day.

In the end, this first race of the season rather reassured him since he feared being too far behind the two leading teams to hope for much this season: « I could follow him quite easily, which was a pleasant surprise. I didn’t have any pressure behind me. It was positive to see that we weren’t so far from Mercedes and Ferrari over a full race distance. It was a concern this morning but I’m reassured now to finish within reach. »

If he wants to stay positive, Max Verstappen still finishes 28 seconds behind the leader, whereas Sebastian Vettel maintained control once he took the lead. There is work to be done in Milton Keynes and Viry-Chatillon to return to the forefront.