Ricciardo’s gift
The fastest lap set by Daniel Ricciardo at the end of the Singapore GPas a farewell gesture to Formula 1, was a small-big gift done to his former teammate Max Verstappen. In fact, by taking away that additional point from Lando Norris, the Australian allowed the Dutchman to maintain such a margin of advantage that he could theoretically win the World Championship, always finishing second in the next nine scheduled races: six ‘classic’ GPs and three Sprint events.
If Norris also always climbed to the top step of the podium, Verstappen with nine second places would secure his position by one point fourth consecutive title. However, the short races on Saturday – scheduled for Austin, Interlagos and Losail – could complicate the plans of the Red Bull superstar. Supporting him is the 2016 champion, Nico Rosbergaccording to which it is difficult to believe that Hasslet’s #1 can really always arrive in second position, beating each time the competition from Piastri, the Ferraris and the Mercedes, which in the last GPs seemed more competitive than Red Bull.
The ‘problem’ of Sprints
“Max won’t be happy that F1 has put all these Sprint races on the calendar – said Rosberg, speaking on the podcast of Sky F1 – a win is worth eight points and there are three races: that’s a lot of points. By the way his car is going, this adds a lot of pressure on Max. I believe that the title challenge could be fought to the end: Lando can really win and sooner or later he will also have Oscar’s help [Piastri]. For Max, finishing second in all the remaining races is difficult, almost impossible: there is Oscar, there are the Ferraris and the Mercedes”.
Verstappen, even during his most dominant seasons, has never been a big fan of Sprint races, which have always been highly criticized by him. However, on a statistical level, the Orange has always achieved great results in this type of format: Verstappen has in fact won 10 of the 15 Sprints contested in historyobtaining 14 podiums. Norris, on the other hand, from 2021 to today in short races has collected just three podiums and zero victories.
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