Portuguese Grand Prix – The straights hurt Verstappen
At the end of a weekend in which the Red Bulls seemed to be lagging behind the Mercedes, Verstappen lost ground to Hamilton in the world championship, finishing the Portuguese Grand Prix in second place.
Mixed Grand Prix for Red Bull and Verstappen at Portimao. While they seemed to be able to compete with Mercedes again for victory, a lack of speed and grip throughout the weekend first deprived the Dutch driver of pole position on Saturday. On Sunday, this same difficulty on the straight line thwarted him from catching Hamilton, winner of his second Grand Prix of the season.
Saved by an undercut
Verstappen’s start of the race was promising, with excellent acceleration after the safety car to overtake Hamilton. But the lack of speed on the straights kept him blocked behind Bottas before the Briton overtook him again on the 11th lap.
Verstappen admitted his difficulties at the end of the race:
« I started 3rd and finished 2nd, I generally had a good race, and an excellent restart where I was able to put pressure on Valtteri (Bottas). But we lacked a bit of speed to catch up with the leaders, they (Mercedes) were better than us, Lewis (Hamilton) also managed to bring his hard tires to temperature to stay ahead.
Indeed, after returning to the pits on the 36th lap, Verstappen undercut Bottas to snatch second place. He ultimately lacked the pace to catch up with Hamilton.
« We lacked a bit of speed to catch up with the leader. They (Mercedes) were better than us! »
Last highlight, a battle for the fastest lap point took place at the end of the race, with Bottas coming in 3 laps from the end to switch to soft tires, followed by Verstappen. Despite setting the fastest time at the checkered flag, his time was invalidated for going off track at turn 14.
The Red Bull driver learned the news on the microphone when he got out of the car, surprised: “It’s weird, I thought they wouldn’t monitor track limits at turn 14, it’s a shame not to be able to take the point for the fastest lap, but it’s in line with the weekend, where we lacked grip and everything wasn’t really under control.”
« Not everything was really under control »
The Red Bull driver is already looking ahead to the next Grand Prix in Spain, next weekend: Let’s see what we can do in Barcelona to better challenge the Mercedes. Verstappen now trails Hamilton by eight points in the drivers’ world championship!
