F1 News
Doornbos: 'Red Bull and Verstappen have made good use of the break towards Russia'
- GPblog.com
Max Verstappen came second twice in Sochi. In qualifying behind Lewis Hamilton and in the race behind Valtteri Bottas. The Dutchman will be happy with the podium, after having dropped out twice in Italy. Robert Doornbos expects that too. In his column on Ziggo Sport the Dutch racing driver explains that Red Bull Racing has come out of the rest week strongly.
"One of the protagonists this weekend was of course Verstappen, after two disappointing weekends in Italy where he was unable to finish due to mechanical problems. Fortunately there was a break between these races. Now he had a break to consult with his team. If you see how Max comes back then, how he maximizes everything on Saturday, where he did have the luck of the Bottas slipstream".
Bottas won on strategy
However, Doornbos expects that Bottas accidentally gave the slipstream to Verstappen. "Then you're done with the last run in Q3 and you see that you leave six tenths on your own team mate. I think Bottas heard his engineer's call too late and therefore gave three tenths to Verstappen". The analyst at Ziggo Sport does think he managed to get P2 in the race as a result.
"The front row of the grid was well gone, but the man on P3 is of course better off. Bottas was quickly past Verstappen and he was immediately in the Hamilton slipstream. He couldn't overtake Hamilton there, but in the end he managed to win the race on strategy and race pace" , Doornbos concludes.