F1 News
Brundle points to Red Bull Racing: ''Maybe they relaxed a little at that point''
- GPblog.com
Max Verstappen lost Sunday's race in Bahrain due to a better strategy from Mercedes. Verstappen's RB16B seemed faster than Mercedes' W12 all weekend, but the Germans were smarter about it according to Martin Brundle.
Mercedes had the advantage of having two drivers in the battle during the Bahrain Grand Prix. While Sergio Perez still had to work his way through the midfield on behalf of Red Bull Racing, Mercedes could choose two different strategies for Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas. Max Verstappen was on his own, and Red Bull made the wrong choice for him in hindsight.
Red Bull falls asleep
''Red Bull kept faith in their strategy and didn't respond immediately and ran to lap 17 before fitting their new set of medium compound tyres onto Max's car, which Mercedes didn't have left in their allocation.Mercedes took control of the race but when Hamilton had to pit on lap 29 again for a further set of hard tyres, with 27 laps remaining, the pendulum swung heavily in Red Bull's favour. Maybe they relaxed a little at that point expecting Merc would have to stop yet again or be plain slow later on, relatively,'' Brundle said in his column for Sky Sports.
Mercedes, however, had the ideal man up front with Hamilton. The seven-time world champion kept his tyres in tact and was able to keep Verstappen at bay for a long time. With his fresher tyres, Verstappen only had one chance, and it failed as he went off track. Brundle can't figure out how Verstappen then gave that spot back.
Verstappen learns an important lesson
''Max was told by his team to hand the place back which he chose to do immediately between Turns 10 and 11 where Hamilton had his DRS rear wing open just as Max was lightly filling up his molten slick tyres with rubbish as he moved offline. Why didn't he wait until after Turn 13 and let Lewis past by him going offline, and then getting DRS behind him again for the start of the next lap? Or even just stay on-line down to Turn 11 so he would have been given an immediate slipstream as Lewis moved back in front of him?,'' said Brundle.
The Dutchman chose to drive on the dirty part of the track and give Hamilton a clear advantage with his DRS. Verstappen needed a couple of laps to get the dirt off his tyres, which prevented him from making a good overtaking attempt. A wise lesson probably for Verstappen.