Konnichiwa, MiniFans! A little spritz of rain earlier in the day trained all eyes towards an overcast sky despite the forecast indicating no immediate risk of more water pouring down. However, something good came out of this eariler rain: the lowered chance of grass randomly catching on fire due to sparks from the car hitting it.
Both Verstappen and Norris pointing at the centre of the track wasn’t a problem due to both getting a decent start and keeping their places, not wanting to end their races in the first corner. The very clean start showed how careful drivers wanted to be with the random patches of water still present on the track, as everyone was using slicks and the surface was extremely delicate. The only position changes came from out of the top ten, the caution shinigh through as everyone was waiting for the track to get grippier and less dangerous.
Verstappen managed to be faster than both McLarens despite his problems with the upshifting, slowly but surely opening up a gap to Norris, who soon started needing to keep an eye in his rearview mirror. Piastri looked to be faster than his teammate, but it wasn’t quite clear whether it was true pace or Norris was simply taking care of his tyres in otder to attack Verstappen later on. The race pace kept increasing as the track kept on drying, with teams letting drivers know that no more rain was expected and that tyres were looking good, as no graining whatsoever was making an appearance.
The overcut wasn’t looking like as great an idea as it is in other tracks, but McLaren still tried to trick Red Bull, faking a pit stop with Norris to overtake Verstappen. However, this message was relayed a bit too early in the lap for it to be believable and Red Bull easily saw through it, offering the information to a Verstappen that responded with a quicker lap time. Extending the stop was becoming the norm at the front, due to no gaps at the back to slot the cars into, and Russell was the first one to take the risk, landing in between Tsunoda and Lawson, who had exchanged places at the start but made no further progress.
McLaren chose to launch the attack with Piastri very soon after Russell’s stop, pitting him for hards and finding a small gap for him in between Bearman and Alonso. This forced the hand of the now top three: Verstappen, Norris and Leclerc all pitted together, with the first two fighting while exiting the pitlane. Norris tasted the grass as he tried to keep up with Verstappen, who kept on racing without chaging his line. Thus a radio battle ensued between both drivers, who were defending their own actions and condemning their rival’s. All this covered a brand new record being broken, with Antonelli becoming the youngest race leader in history, taking it from Verstappen himself by just five days.
Race Direction soon ended the radio squabble between Verstappen and Norris, declaring their investigation came to no further action towards either of the drivers. When the drivers that had started on hards finally trickled into the pitlane, the order came back to what it had been at the start and everything started over again. Verstappen got a very clear green light from his race engineer to push until the end, allowing him to fight against the oncoming McLarens, who seemed to be picking up the pace to close the gap.
The dirty air seemed to be McLaren’s nemesis the whole race, as the rest of the weekend had made it clear their pace was superior. However, towards the end of the race, Piastri kept claiming that his pace was better than Norris’, asking for a chance at trying to catch Verstappen. Red Bull quickly told its driver about this fight, wanting him to be ready just in case either of them managed to reach his DRS zone. Despite them getting it down to barely a few hundredths over a second, their weak point over slow corners being taken advantage of by Verstappen, as well as Piastri’s attempts at overtaking Norris in the safest manner he could find. Nothing that was tried by the papaya team seemed to work in closing the gap enough to be able to use the aid of DRS, and Verstappen quietly cruised back to the top step of the podium for the first time this season.
The weekend had been pointing in a very specific direction, an easy new win for McLaren, but Verstappen is the kind of driver that can never be considered out of contention under any circumstances. The four-time world champion showed his grit and ability to drive above what his car can gift him, first with a masterful lap to take pole position on Saturday, which left even legends of the sport speechless, and later on managing to keep a gap to both McLarens big enough not to let them even try an overtake throughout the whole race on Sunday. This feat shot him right behind Norris in the championship standings, just one point away from the lead, proving that a driver can counter a car that’s not the best in order to challenge those with the finest machinery.
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