Max Verstappen’s hopes of winning the Spanish Grand Prix received a boost at the start of the race when he got ahead of pole-winner Lando Norris.
But a bold strategy call by Red Bull before the race even began paid dividends towards its end.
Like Norris on pole position and the Ferrari pair on row three, Verstappen had saved an untouched set of soft tyres from practice and qualifying. But unlike those rivals, he chose not to start on them. He therefore went into the race knowing he would have a fresh set of soft tyres available to use later on.
The decision to start the race on a set of used softs effectively committed Verstappen to pitting earlier than those around him who started on new tyres. However Red Bull knew the only car among the top four which could do this was Norris, as the Mercedes drivers had no new softs left.
This was a sensible gamble, as Red Bull knew getting ahead of Norris at the start was going to be difficult. Norris’ firm tactics off the line probably would have prevented Verstappen getting by him, but then George Russell drew alongside the pair of them. As Norris admitted later, this forced him to back off earlier for the first corner, losing places to both his rivals.
Verstappen had a strong chance to win the race from that moment on and he boosted his chances when he leant hard on those used tyres and shot past Russell in the DRS zone. Norris couldn’t do the same, despite having a new set of softs, and from there the die was cast.
“I think we did everything well,” said Verstappen. “We drove quite an aggressive strategy, but luckily it paid out at the end. It was quite close until the end, but very happy to win here.”
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Having lost his hard-won advantage of track position, Norris responded in the fashion which has become typical of McLaren lately – by extending his stints, playing to the MCL38’s strengths and giving him the chance to attack on fresher tyres later on. “Lando and McLaren, they were very quick today, especially on deg, it seems always the last few laps of the stint, they were very fast,” Verstappen observed.
Delaying his first stint “made my life much easier to overtake George,” said Norris. “I was racing George until halfway through the race. And once I kind of passed him, then I was in my own race and trying to…
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