Category: Formula 1

Sakhir, 18 March 2022: F1 World Champion took top spot in the second practice session for this weekend’s season-opening FIA Formula 1 Bahrain Grand with the Red Bull Racing driver finishing ahead of the Ferrari cars of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz. Mercedes drivers George Russell and Lewis Hamilton finished in fourth and ninth place respectively.

Leclerc set the pace in the first half of the one-hour session, with the Monegasque driver posting a time of 1:33.121 that kept in at the top of the order for the bulk of the first half hour.

Both Red Bulls and Mercedes’ Hamilton were among the last to take to the track and as the opening phase on medium tyres evolved Verstappen and team-mate Sergio Pérez were almost half a second off Leclerc’s pace on the yellow-banded tyres. Hamilton, meanwhile, was struggling with the handling of his W13 as he once again experienced significant ‘porpoising’ on the main straight.

When the switch to soft tyres for qualifying simulations came Aston Martin pair Lance Stroll were the first out on track, though neither was able to beat Leclerc’s time on mediums. It was left to Alpine’s Fernando Alonso to eventually push past Leclerc’s benchmark with the Spaniard setting a time of 1:32.877.

Leclerc was soon back in control, though, and his lap of 1:32.263 returned him to top spot.

Verstappen then emerged on softs and though he lost time in the middle sector his lap of 1:31.936 was still good enough for him to take P1 and hold it until the end of the session.

With Sainz third, George Russell finished fourth 0.593s slower than Verstappen.

Hamilton had to abandon his first qualifying run after he locked up again at Turn 1 and suffered with a malfunctioning DRS. His eventual soft tyre time was a 1:33.144 that left him ninth, 1.208s behind Verstappen.

Alonso’s quali sim saw him finish fifth ahead of Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas, while Sergio Pérez was seventh ahead Mick Schumacher in the lead Haas. Team-ate Magnussen finished 10^th behind Hamilton.

2022 FIA Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix – Free Practice 2
1 Max Verstappen Red Bull Racing 20 1’31.936
2 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 20 1’32.023 0.087
3 Carlos Sainz Ferrari 22 1’32.520 0.584
4 George Russell Mercedes 25 1’32.529 0.593
5 Fernando Alonso Alpine 24 1’32.877 0.941
6 Valtteri Bottas Alfa Romeo 30 1’32.951 1.015
7 Sergio Perez Red Bull 20 1’32.958 1.022
8 Mick Schumacher Haas 24 1’33.085 1.149
9 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 23 1’33.144 1.208
10 Kevin Magnussen Haas 23 1’33.183 1.247
11 Lando Norris McLaren 27 1’33.280 1.344
12 Esteban Ocon Alpine 25 1’33.360 1.424
13 Pierre Gasly AlphaTauri 24 1’33.621 1.685
14 Yuki Tsunoda AlphaTauri 26 1’33.789 1.853
15 Guanyu Zhou Alfa Romeo 27 1’33.953 2.017
16 Lance Stroll Aston Martin 25 1’33.958 2.022
17 Nico Hulkenberg Aston Martin 28 1’34.061 2.125
18 Daniel Ricciardo McLaren 12 1’34.166 2.230
19 Nicholas Latifi Williams 28 1’34.486 2.550
20 Alex Albon Williams 22 1’34.735 2.799

Sakhir, 12 March 2022: Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen set the fastest time of the three days of running in Sakhir as Formula 1 pre-season testing came to an end at the Bahrain International Circuit. 

Verstappen, driving in the afternoon after team-mate Sergio Pérez topped the morning session, completed 53 laps at the wheel of an updated RB18 featuring revised sidepods. 

The World Champion didn’t appear for most of the first hours of the later session but when he did he gradually began to work his way to the best time of the three days overall as he cycled through various tyre compounds. He set a 1:32.645 on C3 medium tyres and later moved to the softest C5 rubber to set his best lap of 1:31.720.

That put him almost seven tenths of a second  ahead of second placed Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc. The Monegasque driver’s best lap was delivered on the C4 compound. He did try the C5 tyres but despite setting a purple middle sector he flagged late in the lap and was slower. 

Third place in the session went to Alpine’s Fernando Alonso. The Spaniard left his best to the end of the session fitting C4 tyres in the final five minutes of the session to set personal bests in each sector to stand as one of just two drivers to get within a second of Verstappen’s time. George Russell was fourth with a time of 1:32.759 that left him 1.039 behind Verstappen and the new Mercedes recruit looked to be battling the mishandling car throughout the lap. 

Behind Russell, Valtteri Bottas was fifth for Alfa Romeo. The Finn used C3 Pirelli tyres to set a best time of 1:32.985 but his running early when he stopped outside the Turn 8 due to a gearbox issue. 

AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda took fifth place as the Italian squad closed out a solid test phase. The Japanese driver, who completed 57 laps, finished two hundredths of a second behind Bottas, while team-mate Pierre Gasly logged 91 laps on the team’s final day.

After setting the fastest lap of the morning, Sergio Pérez was left with seventh place at the close of running, five hundredths of a second ahead of Haas’s Mick Schumacher, who briefly brought out the red flags in the afternoon after he spun.

Lando Norris ended the day in ninth place for McLaren and after taking over from Lance Stroll at Aston Martin, Sebastian Vettel finished with the day’s 10th quickest time.

Formula 1 2022 Pre-Season Test, Bahrain – Day Three
1 Max Verstappen Red Bull RB18 Red Bull 53 1:31.720 
2 Charles Leclerc Ferrari F1-75 Ferrari 51 1:32.415 0.695
3 Fernando Alonso Alpine A522 122 1:32.698 0.978
4 George Russell Mercedes W13 71 1:32.759 1.039
5 Valtteri Bottas Alfa Romeo C42 68 1:32.985 1.265
6 Yuki Tsunoda AlphaTauri AT03 57 1:33.002 1.282
7 Sergio Pérez Red Bull RB18 43 1:33.105 1.385
8 Mick Schumacher Haas VF-22 57 1:33.151 1.431
9  Lando Norris McLaren MCL36 90 1:32.191 1.471
10 Sebastian Vettel Aston Martin AMR22 46 1:33.821 2.101
11 Guanyu Zhou Alfa Romeo C42 82 1:33.959 2.239
12 Pierre Gasly AlphaTauri AT03 91 1:34.865 3.145
13 Carlos Sainz Ferrari F1-75 Ferrari 68 1:34.905 3.185
14 Alex Albon Williams FW44 18 1:35.171 3.451
15 Nicholas Latifi Williams FW44 124 1:35.634 3.914
16 Lance Stroll Aston Martin AMR22 53 1:36.029 4.309
17 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes W13 78 1:36.217 4.497
18 Kevin Magnussen Haas VF-22 38 1:38.616 6.896

With Max Verstappen claiming the 2021 FIA Formula One World Championship driver’s title following his dramatic win at the Abu Dhabi season finale, we explore how he has developed from a precociously talented young karter to sit at the very pinnacle of the motor-racing world. Here is all you need to know:

Born to race

– That Verstappen’s father, Jos, was also an F1 driver is well known; his career spanned much of the 1990s and he was a team-mate of Michael Schumacher. However, Max benefits from a double dose of racing DNA as his mother, Sophie Kumpen, enjoyed a successful karting career of her own, winning the Andrea Margutti Trophy in 1995.

– Speaking on the Beyond the Ordinary podcast, David Coulthard, an F1 contemporary of Verstappen Sr, explains: “The absolute commitment that was carried in his [Jos’s] DNA has been passed on to Max, and I think that what the Verstappen family has done is work very hard to give him the best grounding – through karting, into cars – make great choices and position him now in a very happy place.”

An early start

– At the point most of us are making our first wobbly attempts to ride a bike, young Max was getting a taste of motor racing. As Jos recalls, “He was four-and-a-half when we first put him in. He did it for one day and immediately we bought him a bigger go-kart.”

– Was that a nerve-wracking experience for the watching parents? Jos adds, “Not really, because I think he was about two-and-a-half when he was [first] driving on a quad bike, so he had quite a lot of experience with speed, how to steer…”

First race

– By those standards, it must have seemed like an interminable wait for his first taste of competitive action. Max was the grand old age of seven by the time he was lining up on the grid for the first time.

– Thankfully, the wait to experience the thrill of victory was not quite as long, as Max went straight out and won that first race. Jos recalls, “We’d prepared very well. He was racing against other mini juniors, who could be nine or 10 years old, so he was competing against a lot older boys.”

Doing the hard yards

– What followed over the next decade or so really laid the foundations for the world champion of today. Together, father and son devoted themselves to Max’s nascent career, travelling from race to race in their van and racking up victory after victory.

– Jos explains, “I think every year we were racing, we were winning championships. You do a lot of races, but what I also really enjoyed was all the things around it. You know, the two of us together in the van, all the preparation you have to do before… I miss it now, but at that moment I really enjoyed it. We did about 80-100,00km a year, every year and we did that for 10 years. It was quite intense.”

Making the jump to F3

– It’s no exaggeration to say that Max made an immediate impact when he made the switch over to cars. Former Red Bull Racing teammate Alex Albon reveals, “Max was straight away quick when he joined the championship. He was aggressive back then as well. We didn’t have any altercations – we would never fight, there was always that mutual respect – but, at the same time, we were definitely rivals.”

F1 comes calling

– With 10 race victories and third place overall in his maiden F3 championship, it wasn’t long before Formula One teams started taking a look at the talented youngster, and in August 2014 Helmut Marko signed Max up to Red Bull Racing’s driver development programme.

– We saw him in action during free practice at that season’s Japanese GP, but it was seven months later, at the season-opening Australian GP in Melbourne, that he first lined up in Toro Rosso colours in earnest. Aged just 17 years old, he was F1’s youngest-ever competitor.

– Max recalls, “Some said, of course, that I was too young. At the time, I didn’t even have my driving licence. They knew of course that I was in Formula One, but the driving instructor, he was very strict, which was good. I had caps, t-shirts ready in case somebody needed to be bribed, but he didn’t take it!”

From youngest driver to youngest winner

– An outstanding first season brought not only plenty of championship points, but also awards for rookie of the year, personality of the year and action of the year for his stunning overtake at Belgium’s Spa circuit.

– That meant it wasn’t long until Marko was on the phone again, and Max was promoted to drive for Red Bull Racing from the 2016 Spanish GP. As Coulthard explains, “It was a great opportunity. Helmut and Red Bull have shown an ability to back young talent and give them an opportunity.”

– His impact, of course, was immediate and he held off Ferrari’s Kimi Räikkönen in the closing stages to become F1’s youngest race winner at 18 years and 228 days, making headlines around the world.

– Max recalls the experience, “I started cramping a little bit with five laps to go because of the excitement and the focus. It was pretty crazy, I was literally counting the laps at the end, there was a lot of pressure. My dad was getting so excited at the end that his nose started bleeding.”

Fine tuning his style

– His debut win at Barcelona was just a taster for what was to come as Max picked up two victories in the 2017 season at Malaysia and Mexico to place sixth overall in the championship.

– He needed to show some resolve at the start of the 2018 season following two frustrating retirements in Bahrain and Azerbaijan with his first Austrian victory lifting his spirits en route to another Mexican win and fourth in the championship.

– He upped the ante in 2019 to score three wins with an Austrian repeat, German triumph and Brazilian victory to finally finish the season in the top three overall.

– Two victories in the shortened 2020 season saw him place third overall again as he tightened up his driving style and looked to eliminate the occasional hot-headed error that had cost him before.

Eye on the title

– After a successful off-season getting his mind and body in shape, Max powered off the grid quickly in 2021 with two wins and three second places in the first five races before a tyre blowout at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix cost him valuable points.

– It was the British Grand Prix, though, that truly elevated the rivalry with Mercedes as Lewis Hamilton’s controversial move put Max into the tyre wall at a dangerous speed.

– To Max’s credit, he bounced back with wins in Belgium and his home Dutch Grand Prix before the hotly debated moment in Germany when he clashed with Hamilton again forcing both out.

– Since then, Max has managed to stay out of trouble with US and Mexican GP wins sandwiched by four second places as the title race headed down to the wire in the Middle East.

– With his Abu Dhabi GP victory finally seeing him crowned Formula One world champion for the first time, the future is extremely bright for the 24-year-old and a Red Bull team eager to bank more titles next year.

– As Coulthard, no stranger to title tussles himself, explains, “This is a classic period. When we’ve had these titanic battles in the past, they might come along once a decade or 20 years, but when it happens it’s a wonderful thing to be able to witness two greats go toe-to-toe.”

Abu Dhabi, 11 Dec 2021: Max Verstappen will start the title-deciding Abu Dhabi Grand Prix from the front of the grid after claiming his 10^th pole position of the campaign,beating title rival Lewis Hamilton by almost three tenths of a second as Lando Norris finished third for McLaren.

Verstappen ran early in Q1 and the Dutch driver quickly moveds to the top of the timesheet with a lap of 1:23.680. Red Bull team-mate Sergio Pérez slotted into P4 with a lap of 1:24.253 that put him behind the AlphaTauri cars of Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda.

Mercedes driver Hamilton and Bottas then appeared and title-contending Hamilton jumped to top spot with an opening flying lap of 1:23.266. Bottas then shuffled Verstappen down to third with a lap of 1:23.367.

Soon after there was a brief red flag when one of the Haas cars clipped a bollard in the final corner and the debris ended up on the racing line on the corner exit where McLaren driver Norris then ran over it.

The session restarted with six minutes left on the clock and in the final runs Hamilton improved to 1:22.845 to head Q1 in front of Bottas who ended the segment in P2 with a time of 1:23.117. Verstappen closed out the segment in third place thanks to an improved time of 1:23.332, just 0.018s ahead of Pérez who finished fourth ahead of Tsunoda.

Eliminated at the end of the session were Williams drivers Nicholas Latifi and George Russell in P16 and P17 respectively, the Alfa Romeo of Kimi Räikkönen in P18 and the Haas cars of Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin in 19^th and 20^th places.

In the second segment both Red Bull and Mercedes sent their drivers out on medium tyres. Hamilotn set the benchmark at 1:20.185 but Verstappen opened with a good lap on the yellow-banded tyres to slot into second place, just 0.004s behind his rival. Sainz then popped up with a lap of 1:23.174 on softs to take top spot, and as he did so Verstappen reported that he had flat spotted one of his medium tyres.

Not wanting their driver to start the race on a damaged set of mediums, Red Bull switched Verstappen to softs for his final run. It was a move mirrored by Pérez, whose opening time was only good enough for P10.

And good laps by both saw Verstappen take top spot in Q2 with a lap of 1:22.80, with Pérez three tenths of a second further back in P2. Red Bull will therefore start the race on soft tyres. Behind them Hamilton and Bottas took third and fourth and will start on mediums.

Eliminated at the end of the segment were Alpine’s Fernando Alonso in 11^th place ahead of Gasly, whose brake problems continued, Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll, the Alfa Romeo of Antonio Giovinazzi and the second Aston of Sebastian Vettel.

In Q3, the Red Bull drivers worked together well in the opening runs of Q3 with Pérez providing Verstappen with a crucial tow before backing off to let the championship leader surge past and set a blistering time of 1:22.109.

That left the Dutch driver in provisional pole ahead of Hamilton, but the support provided by Peerez left the Mexican left the Mexican in sixth place. Vestappen responded by providing a tow on the Mexican’s second lap and Peerez jumped to an eventual fourth place on the grid behind Norris who sprung a surprise by putting his McLaren into third place.

The opening run pace from Veratappen was so strong that in the final runs there was no response from Mercedes and Hamilton was forced to settle for second place, 0.371 adrift of the Dutch driver.

With Norris putting in a good final flying lap to edge Pérez to fourth, fifth place in qualifying went to Carlos Sainz. The Ferrari driver also put in a good final lap to finish four hundredths of a second ahead of Bottas. Charles Leclerc qualified seventh in the second Ferrari ahead of AlphaTauri’s impressive Yuki Tsunoda, Alpine’s Esteban Ocon and the second McLaren of Daniel Ricciardo.

2021 FIA Formula 1 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix – Qualifying
1 Max Verstappen Red Bull/Honda 1:22.109  7 231.541
2 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:22.480 0.371 0.452 7 230.499
3 Lando Norris McLaren/Mercedes 1:22.931 0.822 1.001 7 229.245
4 Sergio Pérez Red Bull/Honda 1:22.947 0.838 1.021 7 229.201
5 Carlos Sainz Ferrari 1:22.992 0.883 1.075 6 229.077
6 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 1:23.036 0.927 1.129 6 228.956
7 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 1:23.122 1.013 1.234 6 228.719
8 Yuki Tsunoda AlphaTauri/Honda 1:23.220 1.111 1.353 6 228.449
9 Esteban Ocon Alpine/Renault 1:23.389 1.280 1.559 6 227.986
10 Daniel Ricciardo McLaren/Mercedes 1:23.409 1.300 1.583 6 227.932
11 Fernando Alonso Alpine/Renault 1:23.460 0.660 0.797 6 227.792
12 Pierre Gasly AlphaTauri/Honda 1:24.043 1.243 1.501 7 226.212
13 Lance Stroll Aston Martin/Mercedes 1:24.066 1.266 1.529 7 226.150
14 Antonio Giovinazzi Alfa Romeo/Ferrari 1:24.251 1.451 1.752 8 225.654
15 Sebastian Vettel Aston Martin/Mercedes 1:24.305 1.505 1.818 8 225.509
16 Nicholas Latifi Williams/Mercedes 1:24.338 1.493 1.802 8 225.421
17 George Russell Williams/Mercedes 1:24.423 1.578 1.905 7 225.194
18 Kimi Räikkönen Alfa Romeo/Ferrari 1:24.779 1.934 2.334 8 224.248
19 Mick Schumacher Haas/Ferrari 1:24.906 2.061 2.488 9 223.913
20 Nikita Mazepin Haas/Ferrari 1:25.685 2.840 3.428 9 221.877