With a daring strategy, Max Verstappen brought some much-needed excitement to the Spanish Grand Prix on Sunday. But in a hectic final phase, he also crossed the line with George Russell out of frustration. It was an action reminiscent of a big name from the past.
The Spanish Grand Prix offered the complete package for Verstappen. A driver who, with a clearly inferior car, could still put pressure on the dominant McLarens, who kept his car out of the wall with a masterful action at the restart, but who then also rammed a competitor out of frustration. Regret? No, he didn’t have that afterward.
Thanks to a strategy he himself described as ‘racy’, it became an interesting Sunday. A daring three-stop strategy brought Verstappen within striking distance of Norris. After that, things started to go wrong rapidly. After his third stop, the world champion ended up close behind Norris, only to have teammate Yuki Tsunoda briefly get in the way. After that, there was one chance to attack Norris. Unintentionally, backmarker Carlos Sainz ruined that: he gave Norris DRS, which kept the McLaren driver out of Verstappen’s clutches.
So it became a third place, until Kimi Antonelli parked his Mercedes in the gravel trap. Safety car; panic on the pit wall at Red Bull. Verstappen had already used all his good sets of soft tires. It was a choice between old softs or new hard tires. “What ehh.. what is this?” it sounded over the radio. “These are the hard tires Max,” engineer Gianpiero Lambiase responded.
No chance
After that, Verstappen had no chance at the restart. Oscar Piastri started the field, behind him the reigning champion almost lost control. It took ironclad car control to get the Red Bull back on track. Next to him, Charles Leclerc then wanted to move Verstappen to the left a bit, which he didn’t appreciate. There was brief contact between the Ferrari and the Red Bull. In the first corner, Russell then tried to squeeze past as well.
Here followed a misjudgment from Red Bull. Verstappen had to go off the track, took the ‘escape road’ and came back on the circuit in front of Russell. “Let Russell pass Max, that is our advice,” he was told. That was bad advice, based on confusion about the new race rules. “But we have seen so often that penalties were handed out for that,” team boss Christian Horner later explained. “We really counted on that.”
Taking the law into his own hands
The stewards later ruled that Russell himself lost control for a moment and thereby touched Verstappen. That’s why he went off the track, and that’s why it wasn’t necessary to give that place back. Verstappen did it grudgingly anyway, in two instances.
That first instance will resonate for a long time. Angrily protesting, Verstappen seemed to let Russell pass towards turn 5. Then he suddenly accelerated and slammed his Red Bull into the side of Russell’s Mercedes. It was an unmistakable example of taking the law into his own hands. The stewards remained relatively lenient and kept it at a time penalty of ten seconds.
That cost Verstappen his fifth place, but he won’t lose sleep over that. Just like he stated that it was a ‘misjudgment’ that he didn’t regret.
Russell couldn’t say if it was personal. The two have a history together, but lately it seemed reasonably okay again. Still, you might wonder if Verstappen would have done this to Leclerc as well. The fact that he said afterwards that he would “bring a box of tissues for Russell next time” said enough.
Regret? Schumacher never did either
The comparison with Michael Schumacher is quickly made. The seven-time world champion was usually the best driver in the field in his time, often did not hesitate to intimidate his weaker competitors, and sometimes crossed the line in doing so. Regret? The German never had that. It was part of Schumacher, just as these outbursts of frustration are part of Verstappen. Now that he has to get involved in many fights again, that happens more and more often. The inner drive is strong, that makes this category of drivers who they are.
So also these kinds of frustration-driven weak moments that can ultimately cost world titles. Schumacher did it more often. Especially during his famous bump against Jacques Villeneuve in 1997. It took him a long time before he reluctantly wanted to admit that he had done something wrong.
Verstappen was not planning to do that on Sunday shortly after the race, still full of frustration, and normally will not do that either. It fits into the total, usually very successful total package of the Limburger. And we got to see that again in all its facets on Sunday.