McLaren had a magical weekend in Qatar. The British team saw Oscar Piastri compete in Saturday’s sprint race and second place in Sunday’s race, with his teammate Lando Norris, joining him on the podium in third place.
One of the keys to success was, to a large extent, the speed and precision shown by the pit stop mechanics. In fact, one of Norris’ stops was the fastest in history.
1.8 seconds was the time taken to change four tires by the British drivera stratospheric time that allowed him to overtake Fernando Alonso, with whom he was competing for third position at the time.
All this in a new race with victory for Max Verstappen. The Red Bull driver lived up to expectations and, after mathematically confirming the achievement of his third world title in the sprint on Saturday, recorded his 17th victory in 22 races held.
Verstappen, 29, who on Friday signed his thirtieth pole position in F1the tenth of the season, showed that he was not making concessions.
After solving on the fast track (he was declared the champion even before the end of the sprint, when his teammate, the Mexican Sergio Pérez, abandoned the reduced test due to an accident), ‘Mad Max’ was undeterred by the euphoria and on Sunday took his tally of hits so far this year to 14that puts himself one away from his own all-time record of wins on the same course.
On Saturday, the early and insatiable Dutch champion entered the elite club of three-time world champions. He is already on the same level as the Australian Jack Brabham, the Scot Jackie Stewart, the Austrian Niki Lauda and the Brazilians Nelson Piquet and Ayrton Senna.
He is only ahead of Frenchman Alain Prost and German Sebastian Vettel, four-time champion.; the Argentine Juan Manuel Fangio, who won five World Cups in the 1950s; and German Michael Schumacher and Englishman Lewis Hamilton, who share a record seven titles.
His victory on Sunday was his forty-ninth, putting him within two reaches of the fourth all-time F1 wins record: held by Prost, who sounded the Marseillaise 51 times.
Source: La Verdad
I’m Rose Herman and I work as an author for Today Times Live. My expertise lies in writing about sports, a passion of mine that has been with me since childhood. As part of my job, I provide comprehensive coverage on everything from football to tennis to golf.
