Max Verstappen is officially Champion of the world of 2023! He won his third title in a row, finishing in p2 today, right after the super rookie Oscar Piastri, who started the sprint in pole position. In place 3 we have Lando Norris, the other McLaren driver, who dropped down to p6 after facing a bad start, but made an incredible comeback finishing on the podium.
The sprint start was already chaotic with Verstappen and Norris having bad starts and Liam Lawson losing control of his car and sliding off the track in the first few corners, causing the first safety car of the sprint. Just a few rounds later the same happened to Williams driver Logan Sargeant, who also had to retire, causing the second safety car period. The third safety car was caused by Perez, Hülkenberg and Ocon, who were forced to retire after Ocon and Perez both attempted to takeover Hülkenberg and each other, causing the three to go into the corner together, sandwiching the Haas driver. Ocon and Perez both had damage done to their car, while Hülkenberg was able to retire his car after finishing the lap.
The starting grid was divided into soft and medium tyre users, the soft starting quickly and gaining positions in the first rounds, as can be seen in the example of Ferrari, who secured positions 4 and 5 at the start, and George Russell who led the sprint for a few laps. Later on those tyres wore off and the medium tyre users had the chance to overtake, which helped Lando Norris, Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri to secure their top 3 spots. Lewis Hamilton also made up a lot of positions finishing in p5, behind Russell in p4.
With his third title win Max Verstappen now joins a group of exclusive drivers, like Niki Lauda or Ayrton Senna. It’s only a matter of time until the Dutchman gets his fourth title, catching up to Alain Prost and Sebastian Vettel.
With all the history written today, we are excited for the Grand Prix tomorrow and look forward to watch another nerve-wracking race.
Picture credits: F1 official Instagram
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