Max Verstappen has re-written the history books of Formula 1 by becoming the youngest Grand Prix victor after dominating and eventually winning the Spanish GP today!
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In his maiden outing for Red Bull following his unexpected promotion from Toro Rosso, the 18-year-old Dutchman showed supreme composure under pressure as he resisted all attacks to claim a memorable victory in only his 24th F1 race.
The race developed into a fascinating tactical contest with Ricciardo and Vettel stopping three times and leaving themselves in a position to chase and catch Verstappen and Raikkonen, who stopped only twice.
Ricciardo, victor of three races in 2014 when, like Verstappen, he moved up from Toro Rosso to the main Red Bull team, had led after Mercedes pair Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton collided on the opening lap.
“Right now it’s the reverse situation of when he arrived (at Red Bull) and (Sebastian) Vettel was the driver, except Vettel had four world championships and he doesn’t”, Villeneuve said. The Australian driver had led the first half of the race but, as it turned out, went on to the slower strategy, and finished fourth despite a puncture on the penultimate lap.
“I enjoyed that qualifying session and it was getting better with every lap”, said Verstappen.
Finland’s Valtteri Bottas was fifth for Williams with Spaniard Carlos Sainz sixth for Toro Rosso.
“Get out of the way, it’s going to cost us time”, said Button over the radio referring to Haryanto.
Verstappen would finish the 2015 season in a respectable 12th place, but, as seems to be the case with the Belgian-born driver who races under the Dutch flag, more glory was around the corner. Verstappen also recorded a quicker lap before the Briton hit back with just seconds to go, recording a flat 1:22:00 and that was enough to bag him another pole position, with Ayrton Senna’s record in his sights.
Hamilton was distraught. He threw his steering wheel and knew he had thrown away a chance of claiming his first victory in eight races since he won his third title in Texas past year.
“He’s a really good boy and Jos [Verstappen], he knows things about racing”, Wolff said.
“I don’t want to come across as a bad sportsman and, whatever happened on the track, Max crossed the line first”.
The biggest drama of the race came at the start.
“I was celebrating a lot on the in lap and I got a bit of cramp, but that’s part of it!”. But Rosberg and Hamilton crashed into one another, just as the reigning world champion was attempting to pass his teammate on the first lap.
There was less happy news for the Mercedes team.
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Mercedes’ mature response even saw Hamilton and Rosberg prevented from speaking to the assembled media until the post-race stewards’ investigation had concluded, as noted during Sky Sports’ TV coverage of the race, by which point the emotion of the incident had cooled.
