Max Verstappen, from frustrated to liberated, during the Spanish Grand Prix
Max Verstappen has won another Grand Prix this season, his 4th victory in 6 races, confirming his dominance in the championship. When he doesn't retire, he wins, despite encountering some frustrating issues during the race this Sunday in Spain.
An F1 driver must demonstrate a certain level of consistency, and if Max Verstappen has just taken the lead in the 2022 F1 championship, despite two retirements in six races, it’s because his consistency makes up for it the rest of the time. However, his Spanish Grand Prix did not seem to start off on the right foot.
Finishing second in Barcelona, Max Verstappen knew that Leclerc had a 3 in 4 chance of winning the race on this track. In addition to staying behind at the start, Verstappen couldn’t take advantage of DRS to overtake Leclerc during the race, as his system malfunctioned.
As if that wasn’t enough to frustrate the Dutch driver, the reigning champion, he spun out in turn 4, probably due to the strong wind in that sector.
« It was difficult. Of course, the wind was strong in turn 4 and I lost control of the rear, I got caught off guard. Then I tried to start over, but when I was fighting with George Russell, the DRS wasn’t working, so it’s complicated. With these cars, the DRS is very important.
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Luck, however, turned around in turn 27 when his main rival in the championship – Charles Leclerc – retired due to a mechanical issue.
So these few laps were very annoying. But I refocused and we came back thanks to the strategy. We had different tires but we managed to optimize the outcome.
I think we are doing very good things, but it can quickly turn if we have reliability issues, so we need to stay attentive on that side.
Note that like most drivers, Verstappen made 3 pit stops on Sunday and therefore completed 4 different stints on worn soft tires and then mediums.
