While Red Bull’s status as one of Formula 1’s elite teams has not been in question ever since their race-winning breakthrough way back in 2009, the ultimate team prize of the constructors’ championship has eluded them for the past nine years.
Once the sport’s all-conquering dominators, Red Bull have been humbled in the V6 turbo era by the irresistible rise of Mercedes. But after the drivers’ championship came their way for Max Verstappen last season, it has been clear for months now that the constructors’ champions trophy would finally return to Milton Keynes this year.
As the team prepared for a likely coronation in Texas, any pre-emptive thoughts of celebration were quickly cancelled on Saturday with the announcement that Dietrich Mateschitz, the founder of the Red Bull media empire, had died. As the team mourned the loss of the man it owed its existence to, two of the best products of the Red Bull junior driver programme – Carlos Sainz Jnr and Max Verstappen – locked out the front row of the grid in qualifying for the United States Grand Prix.
The question on Sunday was which of the pair would reach turn one at the top of the hill first – the Ferrari, or Red Bull’s newly-crowned double world champion. That question was quickly answered for over 140,000 eager spectators around the Circuit of the Americas when Verstappen launched off the line when the lights went out and was clear in the lead before he even began to scale the hill on the approach to turn one.
Sainz remained alongside the Red Bull and looked to cut back on the exit of the hairpin, but before he knew it he was facing back the way he’d come. Behind him, George Russell had demonstrated all the awareness of an overexcited gamer in their first online open lobby race and speared into the Ferrari just after the apex, spinning it around and crashing down the order.
“Come on! What happened there?,” Sainz groaned in frustration and disappointment. “Puncture I think.”
“He just cut across me,” Russell protested. However, the stewards failed to see how Russell spearing into the back of the Ferrari from 30 metres back could be anything other than his fault, handing him a five-second time penalty for being “wholly responsible” for the clash. Sainz, set off after the field but was informed radiator damage had effectively ended his race after just a single corner.
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