Max Verstappen took out who knows where an exceptional Saturday that allowed him to take on Sunday conventional. Conventional, for him. , ten months after the last time, in a timed that seemed painted of the papaya color that decorates the McLaren. Fernando Alonso was probably the most illustrative in his words: “At the moment he is the only one capable of doing that, and taking the car to a level that is not,” the Asturian defined, someone who has not passed history precisely because he lavished too much in compliments towards his rivals.
Magicly resolved the timed, Verstappen could be allowed to face the race with some peace of mind, on a clue where to advance becomes an almost impossible mission, unless the hunter has much more potential than the dam. And, despite the margin with which McLaren has, that advantage was not enough to throw the tetrampone of the world ,. Lando Norris crossed the second, a second and a half of his colleague and main opponent, while Oscar Piestri did the third, less than half a second from his workshop neighbor. The 16 seconds that separated the winner from the room (Charles Leclerc) are the most obvious test of the difference, at least at this point in the film, between the three occupants of the podium and the rest. Fernando Alonso finished the eleventh, while Carlos Sainz did it on the 14th.
in which he was able to keep Norris and Piastri at bay, which have a more sharp car than his. However, neither that nor the strategic superiority that involves playing with two pieces instead of one, was enough for the Woking School (London) to be short to short of Mad Maxwhich made his privileged position on the grill good, to leave as a shot towards the first curve. When the departure of that head turn is headed, the Hasselt corridor had made most of the work, to devote the next 52 turns to control the British and the Australian, entangled in a dialogue of Bests with his track engineers that ended up being absolutely innocuous. Not even Norris’s trick in his reinstatement, just after visiting the workshop to change compounds (22nd turn) – he put himself parallel to Verstappen, and when the asphalt ended he got into the grass -, he served the Somerset boy to deceive career direction and penalize Verstappen. “He has gotten into the grass,” said Red Bull, on the radio, Gianpiero Lambiase, who guides him from the wall, and who replied with his usual phlegm, in reference to McLaren: “We know what his game is.”
Suzuka’s was a race that could perfectly be explained from the dialogues that occurred on the radio. Especially in the case of the British team, who, once again, had to take action on the matter and reduce Piastri’s ambition, when Melbourne’s pilot suggested exchange the position with his partner, in the absence of less than ten turns for the end, to launch an attack on the leader. “We will talk to know what the intention of the team was,” said the aussiewhose frustration is probably increasing with the passage of the great awards, if McLaren is still as conservative as it was this time. The main beneficiary of that approach was Verstappen, who left on his shoulders in a weekend who did not face the best of the spirits, and that closed to great: with his fourth win in Suzuka, in the last test uploaded to a Honda motor car, owner of the installation. “It is very important to try to maximize your performance, and that is something we have achieved this weekend. I thought it was a very beautiful story to win in our last race together with Honda,” the current champion breathed, who, despite fighting with the RB21 almost every time he goes to run, the second goes in the general table, to a single point of Norris.
