Formula One championship leader Nico Rosberg’s hopes of an eighth win in a row disappeared yesterday after a collision with Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton, while Dutch teenager Max Verstappen became Formula One’s youngest race victor in a sensational Spanish Grand Prix.
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Red Bull F1 driver Max Verstappen of The Netherlands celebrates after winning Spanish Grand Prix.
At 18 years and 228 days, he became the youngest race victor, replacing four-time champion Sebastian Vettel who had also taken that record as a Red Bull driver at 21 years and 74 days in 2008.
The Mercedes teammates lined up one and two on the grid, but Rosberg got past pole sitter Hamilton into turn one.
“Nico had a really good turn one and turn two, Lewis tried to dive in, Nico closed the door”. The crash prompted the safety vehicle to be deployed and forced both drivers to retire.
That is despite the fact that even the reigning triple world champion’s boss, team chairman Niki Lauda, is adamant the Briton spiralling out of control and collecting championship leader Nico Rosberg was all Hamilton’s fault.
That put him P2 on the timesheet, 0.117s slower than Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel.
Rosberg, when asked about having talks with Hamilton before the next race in Monaco on 29 May, said: “That is something I need to think about in the days to come”.
“Max Verstappen, you are a race victor, fantastic”, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said over team radio after his driver crossed the finish line.
“It is stupid. We could have won the race”, the three-time champion said.
“From a team’s perspective we’ve looked at the pictures and the data and it’s not clear cut”.
Verstappen’s maiden win on his Red Bull debut was the first in the sport by a Dutchman and the first by the team without Vettel involved in one of their cars. “We saw what happened after that”.
The first-lap crash that accounted for Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg at Barcelona is the most high-profile incident Wolff and his team have had to deal with since the duo were paired in 2013. Nigel Mansell also won the first five races with Williams in 1992.
Rosberg was visibly frustrated in his post-race media sessions, a contrast to the calm demeanour displayed by Hamilton. Probably £30,000-£40,000 of steering wheel. The stewards are going to make a decision on how they see it.
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Wolff explained: “It’s not a situation where you can attribute 100% of the blame to either one of the drivers”. It was a great race and I have to say thank you to the team to give me such a great vehicle.
