June 27, (THEWILL) – Once again chipping at the dominance of Mercedes Benz in Formula 1 racing, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen cruised to a dominant win at the Styrian Grand Prix on Sunday. The victory once more establishes Verstappen’s contention as it extends his lead at the top of the driver’s championship to 18 points so far.
It was a masterful Verstappen performance as he scarcely put a turn wrong in a powerful and clinical display, which was very much what was necessary to keep his Mercedes rival, Sir Lewis Hamilton from the top spot for another GP.
Hamilton’s struggle to keep pace saw him finish in second place, behind Verstappen by some 35 seconds. His Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas capped off a personal excellent weekend by taking third place. The second race driver for Red Bull, Sergio Perez placed fourth and the last of the top five spots went to Lando Norris, the F1 McLaren driver.
Red Bull 2021 improvements have taken the shine off the Mercedes dominance of recent and credit must go to Verstappen’s lightning quick pace. Altogether, Red Bull are 40 points ahead of Mercedes in the constructors rankings in what will go down as another hugely frustrating grand prix for Hamilton and the defending champions.
The Brit driver, who had a sterling run through the GP last year, said he needed to bring his A-game to have any hope of beating Verstappen. But, that has not happened yet. Instead, Verstappen grows in confidence with each victory, something he has attributed to how their car felt:
“Straight away I felt a good balance in the car. It was good to manage the tyres from the start. It felt to the end that I had tyres left. We kept on trying to hit our lap times. That worked really well today.
“We have to show it again next week. We’ll look at what we can do better and I’m looking forward to next week. It’s looking really good, we just have to keep on going. I’m confident we can do another good job again.”
It must worry Hamilton, who posted the second fastest lap of the day, before being unable to keep Verstappen from claiming the lead podium finish. The Brit knows Mercedes will have to regroup again and try and come up with a solution to nip this emerging dominance of rivals Red Bull quickly.
In post-race comments, Hamilton said, “I was trying to keep up but the speed they have, they’ve obviously made some big improvements over the last couple of races and it’s impossible to keep up. I don’t know where we’re losing all the time but I think their long run looks to be a bit better. We lose a lot down the straights.
“We got good points as a team today and we need to keep pushing. I try not to concern myself (with Red Bull’s momentum). They’re just faster. I’ve got to do my best job I can each weekend and we need to find some performance. We need an upgrade of some sort. We need to find some performance from somewhere.”
About the Author
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
