For the first time in 2022, Red Bull finds itself in command of both world rankings. A difficult scenario to imagine at the beginning of April on the morning of Sunday 10 April when Charles Leclerc crossed the line in front of Sergio Perez in Australia at the end of a triumphal ride, made even more difficult for Red Bull to digest due to the second retirement in three races by Max Verstappen. Yet, three races later (with the addition of the Sprint at Imola), Max Verstappen finds himself six points ahead of his peer in the Drivers’ standings.
Thanks to the Dutchman’s three victories and Leclerc’s first technical knockout which took place yesterday in Spain when the Ferrari driver seemed very much on the verge of a landslide victory. The updates brought by the Scuderia di Maranello on the F1-75 made the red car impregnable both in qualifying and in the first stint of the race in the hands of Charles Leclerc, even if the arm wrestling of Max Verstappen lasted too short due to the exit from the track in Turn-4 of the Dutchman due to a gust of wind.
Verstappen’s race became considerably complicated and in addition the driver born in 1997 also had to do without the DRS in most of the occasions in which he would have needed it to attack his rivals. Being able to catch up and engage Charles Leclerc in a duel seemed like a utopia, then the Ferrari driver’s retirement suddenly paved the way for Red Bull towards a shotgun complete with a fast lap (signed by Sergio Perez) that allows the Milton Keynes team to head to Monaco with a 26-point advantage over Ferrari.
Christian believes that in the second part of the race the confrontation with Ferrari would have been more uncertain than what the start of the race had left to imagine: “Leclerc was unlucky – the words of Horner a Sky Sport Uk – a real shame for him the retreat. We had a great race pace and I think that in the second part of the race we would have created a very close challenge“.
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