BARCELONA, Spain (AP) – Dutch teenager Max Verstappen stunned Formula One with victory at the Spanish Grand Prix on Sunday, taking advantage of a crash by Mercedes teammates Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg to become the sport’s youngest victor only a few days after being promoted by his team Red Bull.
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Verstappen, 18 years and 227 days old, also became the first Dutch victor as he pushed the Ferrari pair of Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastan Vettel into second and third place; Daniel Ricciardo suffered a puncture on the penultimate lap but still hobbled over the line in fourth.
“It’s unbelievable, I can’t believe this”, said the senior Verstappen. It was a great race and I have to say thank you to the team to give me such a great auto.
“For me, unacceptable. First of all we must talk to Lewis, because Nico was defending his lead”, Lauda told German television in Spain. In hindsight, I was surprised he went for that inside gap. Raikkonen, who has now overtaken Hamilton in the championship, added: “The really scary thing is that I used to race against his father [Jos]”. He couldn’t believe his luck during the last ten laps when he was already leading the race, and felt they all did what was best for their team. Today everything went well.
“Sure I’m bitter right now”. “That both Mercedes are out after two corners is for me unacceptable. We’ll just keep racing, we’ll obviously try to make sure this doesn’t happen again and that’s it”.
Wolff explained: “It’s not a situation where you can attribute 100% of the blame to either one of the drivers”.
“(Team boss) Toto (Wolff) sees it differently, but I’m a black and white thinker. “I was fast and I got close, but it was not enough”. “I have lost a win and 25 points”. Rosberg had selected the wrong engine mode which meant Hamilton was 11mph quicker than his team-mate on the exit of turn three. It was to move over as early as possible in a very clear strong maneuver and to make it clear to Lewis that I am going to be covering the inside which is a normal thing for a racing driver to do. This created a significant power differential between auto 6 and vehicle 44 at the exit of Turn 3 coming onto the straight, resulting in as much as a 17kph speed difference between the two cars on the straight. Daniel Ricciardo, who led the opening phase of the race, was forced to pit on the penultimate lap with a puncture.
“The biggest aspect has been his calmness”. We tried and we tried. “This is another challenge for us to demonstrate as a team we can move on from hard circumstances”.
Rosberg said he had seen Hamilton approaching and had moved to prevent him passing.
“It s mixed emotions for me”, he said. The crash prompted the safety auto to be deployed and forced both drivers to retire. At the speed I was catching him, I had to decide whether to go left – which was a small gap – or right. The puncture at the end was just salt in the wounds. Valteri Bottas ran a quiet race and finished fifth while Carlos Sainz Jr. finished a career high sixth place.
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Seventh was Sergio Perez in his Force India, with Felipe Massa eighth for Williams, Jenson Button ninth in the McLaren Honda and demoted driver Daniil Kvyat rounded out the top 10 in a Toro Rosso.
