Verstappen Takes Victory After Early Scares
Whilst Max Verstappen was once again able to take victory in a Sprint, it wasn’t all plain sailing for the reigning and defending 3-time World Champion as he had to really get his elbows out early on! McLaren had a strong Sprint to finish second and third, but it was Oscar Piastri who headed teammate Lando Norris!
Some Good Racing
After an additional formation lap, the Sprint got underway with Max Verstappen leading from Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, with Charles Leclerc making up some good progress and moving into P7. For the early laps, Lando was putting serious pressure on Max for the lead before he finally took the lead on Lap 5 following a superb overtake into Turn 3. However, Verstappen repaid the favour with his own great overtake into Turn 4 (this was arguably even better) to retake the lead before Oscar Piastri managed to swoop around the outside of his teammate later on in the lap to move up into second. After this, Max was able to clear down the road, but there was still some action with George Russell clearing Carlos Sainz for P4 whilst the two Alpine’s were running relatively close to one another. Unfortunately, their was an issue with the feed which made it very hard to know what was going on, especially towards the back of the field, but what was clear was Lando Norris was starting to close in on Oscar Piastri. In the end, though, no moves were made with Verstappen taking home the victory from Piastri and Norris whilst Sergio Perez rounded out the points.
The Highs and Lows of the Sprint
I’ve given out two 10’s for today’s Sprint and the first one is obviously Max Verstappen. Max is just so good, and this is the type of action that really showcases it! The other driver I gave out maximum points to is Oscar Piastri because he took advantaged of the situation to move up into second before he kept his calm to keep his McLaren teammate at bay. I also thought Lando Norris can be pleased with a Podium, Kevin Magnussen did a great job to finish 9th for Haas, and George Russell also got the maximum out of his Mercedes.
In terms of the lowest possible grade, I’ve only given out one 1 and that is for Zhou Guanyu. It was really hard to read into what happened towards the back of the field as we literally didn’t see what happened, but Zhou still managed to finish a long way off the field which just isn’t good enough anymore! Fernando Alonso continued his retched run in the Sprint Format after losing time courtesy of Nico Hulkenberg whilst Valtteri Bottas just doesn’t have a good enough car to compete in.
Overall Sprint Race Results and My Ratings
Max Verstappen: 10
Oscar Piastri: 10
Lando Norris: 9
George Russell: 8
Carlos Sainz: 7
Lewis Hamilton: 6
Charles Leclerc: 6
Sergio Perez: 4
Kevin Magnussen: 9
Lance Stroll: 6
Esteban Ocon: 6
Pierre Gasly: 6
Yuki Tsunoda: 5
Nico Hulkenberg: 4
Daniel Ricciardo: 4
Fernando Alonso: 2
Logan Sargeant: 3
Alex Albon: 3
Valtteri Bottas: 2
Zhou Guanyu: 1
My Predictions for Styrian Qualifying
Max Verstappen
Lando Norris
Oscar Piastri
George Russell
Lewis Hamilton