Max Verstappen’s winning margin of 13s in Saturday’s 19-lap Sprint race in Shanghai might suggest that he romped away at the front from the minute the lights went out, but that wasn’t actually the reality of the situation.
Verstappen lined up in fourth place on the grid after not getting the best outcome in yesterday’s rain-hit qualifying session, with his Red Bull team mate Sergio Perez a further row behind him.
Although he was gifted a place on the first lap by Lando Norris being forced wide into turn 1 and dropping to seventh, Verstappen himself made surprisingly little progress in the opening stage.
He was running behind race leader Lewis Hamilton and second place man Fernando Alonso , while fending off attacks from Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz who was closing up from behind.
Verstappen was heard to complain about a flat battery and a lack of grip on the cold tyres. But once those problems were addressed, the RB20 stepped up into overdrive, pulled away from Sainz and made rapid work of the car ahead.
Speaking in parc ferme after the end of the Sprint, Verstappen said his initial struggle “was only the first two laps”, and added that “once we sorted that out it was all okay again”.
“It’s just settings for different energy at different points around the circuit,” he told Viaplay. “Sometimes you run different settings for the start of the race.
“[Hamilton and Alonso] were pushing quite hard up front, and then of course I had Carlos behind with new tyres,” Verstappen continued. “It was very difficult to keep him behind initially.
“Then we became stronger, and also I felt a bit more comfortable with the balance of the car as well and I could look after my tyres,” he noted.
Once he took to the front he immediately began pulling away from Hamilton by over a second a lap, a chilling display as far as his rivals are concerned heading into this afternoon’s Grand Prix qualifying session.
“Qualifying of course is important, to get to get again a good starting position that will help a lot in the first few laps,” he acknowledged. “The wind is changing a lot every day which makes it quite difficult to drive.”
Perez had found himself trapped in a DRS train behind Sainz until the final lapos, when a clash between Sainz and Alonso opened the door for him to finish on the podium alongside Verstappen and Hamilton.
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