Formula 1: Max Verstappen has already matched a career-high
By Asher Fair
Max Verstappen has already matched his career-high single-season Formula 1 win total as he seeks his first world championship.
At the Mercedes stronghold of Circuit Paul Ricard, Red Bull and Max Verstappen executed a perfect tire strategy, similar to tire strategies used against them by the Silver Arrows in the past, to overcome a first-lap blunder and secure the victory in the 2021 Formula 1 season’s seventh race, the French Grand Prix.
The win is Red Bull’s fourth and Verstappen’s third of the 2021 season. Verstappen won the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari (Imola) and the Monaco Grand Prix at Circuit de Monaco earlier this year, and Red Bull won the Azerbaijan Grand Prix at Baku City Circuit with Sergio Perez.
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As a result, the 23-year-old Dutchman has already tied his career-high single-season win total, winning three races he had never won before.
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Given how much he has run at the front through the first seven races of the 2021 season and the fact that, on paper, he could very well have five wins (add Bahrain and Baku) to his name, it may come as somewhat of a surprise that Verstappen has never won more than three races in a single season.
He won one race in 2016 and two in both 2017 and 2018 before winning a career-high three in 2019: the Austrian Grand Prix at the Red Bull Ring, the German Grand Prix at the Hockenheimring, and the Brazilian Grand Prix at Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace.
He added two more wins last season, but not until now have Red Bull been able to compete with Mercedes week in and week out since the V6 turbo hybrid era began in 2014. In fact, they are on a three-race winning streak, something that they hadn’t pulled off since they won their fourth consecutive constructor championship back in 2013.
Verstappen’s French Grand Prix victory, the 13th of his career, also allowed him to extend his lead over Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton in the driver standings.
He entered the race with an eight-point (105-101) lead, and by winning and running the race’s fastest lap, he scored 26 points. Hamilton scored 18 by finishing in second place, giving Verstappen a 12-point (131-119) lead.
The pass that Verstappen made to take the lead away from Hamilton on lap 52 of this 53-lap race around the 15-turn, 3.63-mile (5.842-kilometer) road course in Le Castellet, France marked a 14-point swing in the world championship battle, which is more than the difference between the two drivers through seven races.
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The next race on the schedule is the Styrian Grand Prix, which is scheduled to take place on Sunday, June 27. This race is set to be broadcast live on ESPN from the Red Bull Ring beginning at 9:00 a.m. ET.