When the chequered flag dropped after 66 laps of racing, Verstappen not only became the youngest ever driver to win a race – eclipsing Vettel’s record by almost three years – and the ninth different victor of the Spanish Grand Prix in as many years, he also defied all the doubters, all the nay-sayers and all of those questioned whether he was too young for the sport.
Advertisement
Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen was second and teammate Sebastian Vettel third.
Canada’s 1997 world champion Jacques Villeneuve said Verstappen had made the most of the opportunity presented by dominant Mercedes drivers Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton crashing into each other.
Former driver Nick Lauda, Mercedes’ non-executive chairman, said Hamilton was more at fault for the “completely unnecessary” incident.
“You can’t give one driver exclusively the blame”, Wolff told Germany’s Sky television after a meeting with Hamilton and Rosberg following the crash.
‘The effect is big but thanks to Mercedes to let the drivers be free, ‘ said Prost.
“But that’s racing. We tried and we tried”. I couldn’t believe that I was leading the race.
The pair returned to the paddock on scooters and trudged up the stairs for a debrief with Mercedes team bosses, motorsport head Toto Wolff hot on their heels, before also seeing the stewards.
In that incident, Rosberg finished second behind Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo while Hamilton ultimately retired with collision damage.
Hamilton and Rosberg collided when they were scrapping for the lead when they wrecked the team’s hopes of another one-two triumph and revived bitter memories of their collision in the 2014 Belgian Grand Prix. “Lewis was too aggressive”. “We’ll do the testing and then they will look at the numbers”.
Rosberg had won the first four races of the season and seven in a row including the last three grands prix of 2015.
Indeed, even before a late puncture, sticking to the traditional three-stopper looked to have cost Ricciardo a podium finish as he struggled to overtake Vettel despite having a quicker vehicle.
“Nico was in the wrong setting, he had less energy than Lewis”.
“We have spoken to both drivers and it is not a clear cut decision – we have lost 43 points after lots of effort by the team in the last few hard weeks”, said a strained Toto Wolff, the team chief. “It’s frustrating, I think we just threw the win away”.
Advertisement
“I think after yesterday we would have been happy but obviously we got so close today that it’s even more disappointing, but that’s part of racing and at least we scored good points for the team”. “Both of them were upset about the situation and they know what effort went into building the auto and there was not any finger pointing”.
