Red Bull and Verstappen gambled wrong: 'None of that happened'

F1 News

22 November 2021 at 08:23
  • GPblog.com

Lewis Hamilton won the Qatar Grand Prix very convincingly, as Peter Windsor also saw. Max Verstappen managed to finish second but lacked the speed to get close to his competitor. The battle for the championship is therefore once again wide open.

Verstappen had to deal with a major setback ahead of Sunday's race. As he ignored a double yellow flag during qualifying, he received a five-place grid penalty from race control. It meant he had to start the race from seventh position.

"It was very difficult for Max to do anything to win this race other than hope that they could push Mercedes perhaps into some sort of strategy mistake," Windsor told his YouTube channel. "Or sort of pit stop error or Lewis into some sort of driving error. None of that happened."

Tough discipline at Mercedes

Windsor meanwhile saw that the Mercedes team kept their cool. He, therefore, shares his compliments with the German racing stable. "Lewis at the first stop wasn't very happy because he felt he had a lot more in the tires and he probably did but they brought him in any way. Great discipline there."