Don Kennedy: Max ‘Indiana’ Verstappen on a mountain high

Max Verstappen battled with the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc early in the race. Photo / Don Kennedy

Race fans following the Austrian Grand Prix at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg were able to read about world champion and Red Bull driver Max Verstappen on the morning before the race in the latest edition of the Red Bulletin, described as “an almost independent F1 newspaper” - tongue-in-cheek, obviously, but even more so because of a caricature of Verstappen on the cover depicting him dressed as Indiana Jones.

While the fifth movie in the saga of the Harrison Ford character is a top box office draw, so too is Verstappen in the motor racing world.

The Stryrian mountains were the setting for Verstappen’s latest adventure, with the Red Bulletin dubbing him the “Mountain King”.

He may not have had to climb any mountains, but he certainly conquered the 71-lap race, notching up his fourth win at the Red Bull Ring, a circuit owned by late Red Bull co-founder Dietrich Mateschitz.

After his latest success, Verstappen can justifiably call himself the ring master. His winning margin over runner-up Charles Leclerc, whose result provided Ferrari with some much-needed joy, was just over five seconds, but only because Verstappen decided to stop for fresh tyres with two laps to go to set the fastest lap. A victory was never seriously in doubt, even though early pit stops by the Ferrari drivers initially put some pressure on Red Bull.

Verstappen later revealed he never doubted he would be able to get back in front of Leclerc and Carlos Sainz in the other Ferrari, despite falling behind due to that undercut.

He was able to dictate the race, starting from pole position, and adopt the team’s race strategy, which - as usual - was spot-on.

That's the fourth race win in Austria for Max Verstappen. Leclerc and Sergio Perez look on. Photo / Don Kennedy

Leclerc taking the lead on lap 24 brought Verstappen’s remarkable run of 249 consecutive laps in the lead to an end. Albert Ascari holds the record, with 304 laps led, set in the early 1950s, followed by Ayrton Senna on 264. But Verstappen is more focused on wins, not laps led.

“I think the most important thing for me was lap one - to stay in front. After that, we could do our own race,” he noted. “Of course, we opted not to box during the virtual safety car and just follow our normal strategy. I think it worked out really well.”

“I mean, I could see already the few laps before the virtual safety car came out, we were pulling quite a gap, so I knew I would get them back eventually. I think just following our own plan at the time was the best way forward.”

This was about as perfect a weekend as Verstappen and his Red Bull team could ever have expected at the circuit their late founder owns.

Even Sergio Perez was having a better weekend, coming second in the sprint race and third in the Grand Prix. This was Verstappen’s 42nd Grand Prix win, one more than Senna, meaning he now sits alone as the fifth most-winning driver of all time.

It was his fifth successive victory this season, and he has now won seven out of nine races to lead his teammate Sergio Perez in the drivers’ championship by 81 points. That is more than three race victories, and world championship number three awaits him, even though he refuses to think too far ahead.

He also won the sprint race on the Saturday and took the fastest lap in the race, meaning he has a seventh career hat-trick - a win/pole/fastest lap - tying Senna and Ascari. He is the only driver to win four times at the Red Bull Ring.

“That is the full sweep. Classy, Max, very, very classy,” proclaimed Red Bull boss Christian Horner.

‘The car was on fire,” Verstappen admitted, with that third world title looming large even though we’re not even at the halfway point in the championship.

“I don’t like to think about that yet,” he added.

“I am just enjoying driving this car and racing for this team. The sprint weekend can be very stressful, so I’m just glad it all went to plan.”

For Leclerc, this was his fourth podium in Austria, something he hasn’t achieved at any other circuit. It also marked Ferrari’s 800th podium finish in F1.

“We have maximised what we have,” Leclerc said.

“It was just yesterday that I was a bit off. The upgrades have worked as expected, but there is still a lot of work to do.”

For Perez, after another poor qualifying run left him starting the race from P15 - third represented a great recovery for a man seemingly under pressure. Red Bull adviser Helmut Marko was not pleased with Perez for pushing Verstappen onto the grass as they tussled for the lead on lap one of the sprint race. Nor was Verstappen, who had it out with Perez in parc ferme, later saying it was good to discuss matters and then move on.

“It’s been a tough patch for me, so I hope we are back now and we can keep some consistency,” Perez said. He had a tussle in the race with Sainz at one point, claiming Sainz was moving around under braking, while Sainz said Perez was “intimidating” him. Perez eventually won the battle for the podium, which as it turned out, Sainz would have subsequently lost anyway.

While the first two had basically trouble-free races, the same couldn’t be said for some of the rest. During qualifying, lots of drivers had lap times deleted for exceeding track limits, especially so at the last sweeping corner taken at full throttle with immense G-forces, according to the drivers.

Keeping the car inside the white line proved even more problematic during the race, with the FIA ruling on more than 1200 incidents. A total of eight drivers were given time penalties, some of them post-race.

Lando Norris had his best result of the season, crossing the finish line in fifth place, which became fourth when Sainz was given a 10-second penalty for exceeding track limits.

The latter was given the penalty thanks to a protest from Aston Martin about track limits, dropping Sainz from fourth to sixth, which put him behind Fernando Alonso. Lewis Hamilton crossed the line in seventh but dropped to eighth. He had a battle with Norris for much of the race, and the latter was providing a running commentary as he told his team how many times Hamilton had exceeded track limits.

“Yeah, I was going to do a live commentary at every corner, pretty much.”

Norris quipped on his team radio. When he was told Hamilton had been given a five-second penalty, he said: “He only got a five-second penalty? It should be way more. He had about four strikes in one lap!”

The stewards obviously took note of what Norris said, adding another five-second penalty after the race finished to the first one Hamilton got after just 15 laps. He then got involved in a car radio exchange with his Mercedes engineer, Pete Bonnington.

“Is there a reason why the stewards haven’t given out those penalties yet?” Hamilton almost innocently asked, obviously feeling picked upon.

Bonnington said the stewards were “still dishing out warnings and penalties” without mentioning names. Mercedes boss Toto Wolff then joined the conversation.

“Lewis, the car is bad. We know. Please drive it.”

Hamilton then did his best to draw attention to Perez going off track, but to no avail, while Sainz was not happy to learn he had penalties that dropped him to sixth.

“Yeah, [I’m] obviously frustrated with the final outcome after having such a strong pace on the medium, feeling also like I was playing the team game and not getting rewarded with a good result.”

“It leaves you with a sour feeling. I’ve been very strong today, very quick, very fast, good overtaking, good defending - but in the end, P4 is not what I want.”

Norris was voted driver of the day, rewarded for his best showing this season, his first top-five finish of the season at a track where he podiumed in 2020. He doubled his points haul, moving to 24 with the 12 points for fourth, and 10th in the drivers’ championship.

“A very good day! I was a little bit surprised we had the pace that we did, and it was good to be fighting the Ferraris and Red Bulls,” Norris said.

“More importantly, we beat both the Astons and Mercedes, which was our main goal today. Overall, a good day and good points.”

In response to being voted driver of the day, he was pleasantly surprised.

“Oh really? Oh, that’s cute. It’s because there are so many papaya fans here,” he cheekily noted, in reference to the Dutch fans dressed in orange that fill up two-thirds of the stands.

This weekend it’s the British GP at Silverstone. Last year, it was a classic race. It started with a number of cars colliding, with Zhou Guanyu in the Alfa Romeo being flipped and sliding upside down across the run-off area, then hitting the tyre barrier, flipping into the air and slotting down between the fence and tyres.

He walked away unhurt. In the closing laps, five cars fought for the lead, with Sainz winning his first Grand Prix. He will want to repeat that on Sunday, but Verstappen is yet to win the British GP.

He was punted off by Hamilton in 2021 when leading, and last year had a damaged floor and limped home in seventh place. It is hard to imagine lightning will strike three times for Verstappen, and given his current imperious form, nobody will be surprised if he wins the race this time.