F1 stars Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton renewed their rivalry in the United States Grand Prix Sprint race as the Mercedes star pushed his Red Bull opposite number as hard as he could
Red Bull might have a quicker car than Mercedes, but Lewis Hamilton starts three places ahead of Max Verstappen on the grid and will hope to take full advantage.
Lewis Hamilton felt Max Verstappen was using more of the track than is allowed as they battled in the United States Grand Prix Sprint.
Verstappen started the short-form race on pole with Charles Leclerc just behind him. He saw off the challenge of the Ferrari racer with some aggressive defending off the line, but soon a new threat emerged in the form of his old Formula 1 rival.
Leclerc was quickly passed by Hamilton, who then dominated Verstappen for a number of laps. The seven-time world champion was unable to overtake, but he believed that was because his Red Bull rival was violating track regulations.
The Mercedes driver said over the radio, obviously trying to get race control’s attention with his accusation, “Max has gone off quite a few times. However, there was no investigation into the winner of the race.
Verstappen eventually managed to get away from the Mercedes’ DRS range. He took off quickly after that and never looked back, eventually winning the 19-lap sprint by 9.4 seconds.
He insisted afterwards that he could have pulled away much sooner if he wanted to, but claimed he was managing his tyres which was what allowed Hamilton to stay within striking distance.
“It was quite tight but luckily there is a lot of space going into Turn 1, so that definitely helped,” Verstappen said of his early defence against Leclerc. “After that, we could do our own race, control the pace a little bit and have a bit of fun at the end, pushing a little bit more…
It was always eight-or-nine-tenths [of a seconds between him and Hamilton] for a few laps so that was all controllable into the braking zones. But the DRS with such big wings are quite powerful here. Once I cleared the DRS [window], we all settled in our own rhythms and I think the pace of the car was very good today.”
Verstappen will need to exert more effort to achieve the same outcome in the main Grand Prix. As a result of the track limits violation that resulted in the deletion of his pole lap during qualifying, he will start sixth on the grid and will need to overtake other drivers if he hopes to win 15 of the 18 races he has competed in so far in 2023.
Even though he already has the title locked up, he made it clear that was his target. “Starting sixth tomorrow will be different from today, but it makes it interesting, and hopefully we can have fun,” the Dutchman continued. Of course I want to win, though.