Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez Engage in Heated Exchange after Sprint in Spielberg

Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez had only just climbed out of their still-steaming race cars when they started a discussion that looked a bit like they were about to engage in a pantomime world championship. Or at least play a small round of “Activity” at the living room table. The two Red Bull drivers kept ruffling each other’s hair excitedly, and in between they used their arms and hands to recreate their frantic wheel-to-wheel duel through the first corners of this sprint in Spielberg.

A comic artist would have drawn small clouds over the heads of the two, which would then have looked similar to the larger specimens that had been raining down all day in the valleys of Styria. Undoubtedly there was a little something to discuss.

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Need to speak: After the sprint in Spielberg, Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez meet for a passionate exchange

(Foto: Peter Fox/Getty Images)

On a wet track and mixed tires, Pérez initially overtook pole setter Verstappen, who started poorly, before turn one. On the way up the hill to turn three, Pérez then pushed his teammate into the grass a bit, whereupon Verstappen yelled angrily into the radio: “He pushed me off! What the hell?!” They continued to fight each other until turn five before Verstappen was over and saved the lead to the finish. “Max was probably a bit angry that I went in turn two, but I didn’t see him,” explained Pérez.

And Verstappen was still upset. “It wasn’t very nice. It’s not okay how he did it,” complained the winner after this short race over 24 laps and 100 kilometers. A racing format that Formula 1 introduced two years ago and that is intended to help increase the excitement of the racing series on selected weekends.

Verstappen continues to expand its lead in the World Cup – Hulkenberg surprises

Stupidly, this good idea in Spielberg once again ate its creator. Because the Red Bull team, which is already sky-high, also grabbed the additional eight (Verstappen) or seven (Pérez) special points, the total of six sprints should mean that the Dutchman can celebrate his third world title even earlier than he already does : Verstappen is now 70 points ahead of Pérez in the World Championship standings. Third place went to Carlos Sainz in the Ferrari.

Nico Hülkenberg fought his way to a strong sixth place in the Haas, who had started the race from fourth place and was even able to use the duel between the two Red Bull drivers at the beginning to temporarily fight his way up to second place. “The wet track really suited us. But the drying track ate quite a bit of tires, more so for us than for others,” said Hulkenberg. “When it was really wet, it was okay.”

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Tried to take advantage of the feud between the Red Bull drivers on a wet road: Nico Hülkenber (front) in the Haas.

(Photo: Joe Klamar/AFP)

With the field set to roll into the Grand Prix proper on Sunday in the same starting order, Verstappen and Pérez may feel encouraged to continue their feud from the previous day. And since there is a chance of damp weather again, something similar to tension could perhaps develop after all…

Mateschitz and Swarovski: Boulevard distraction on the sidelines of the race weekend

On the other hand, the around 100,000 visitors to the race track between Friday and Sunday shouldn’t really care how hard Verstappen has to work for his superiority. Traditionally, almost exclusively Dutch people gather in the orange tent castles around the race track. And fortunately for the other locals in Spielberg there was a story to distract this weekend: In the run-up to the first race without the Red Bull company founder Dietrich Mateschitz, who died the previous year (who by the way was nowhere officially remembered, which would have definitely pleased him) , there was “guzzling topic number one”, as the boulevard portal oe24.at put it in a nutshell – and headlined: “Caught! What these secret photos reveal about the Swarovski-Mateschitz love!”

Lo and behold: the presenter and entrepreneur Victoria Swarovski, 29, and the Red Bull heir Mark Mateschitz, 30, actually showed up together at a gala in the Palais Ferstel during the week. There Anita Gerhardter, Mark’s mother, was inducted into the “Austrian Hall of Fame”. Great thing.

Vettel, Hamilton, Verstappen: The overwhelming superiority of individual teams has a long tradition

Lewis Hamilton, who may not have noticed the love happiness of the Austrian billionaires, was thinking about what he thinks should be done to ensure that Formula 1 does not constantly stumble from one phase of overwhelming superiority of one team to the next.

Long winning streaks have become commonplace since the late 1980s. Even McLaren, Williams, Ferrari drove the competitors to the ground. From 2010 to 2013 only Sebastian Vettel became world champion in the Red Bull, and from 2014 to 2020 Lewis Hamilton (and once Nico Rosberg). If Verstappen was lucky enough to win the title in 2021, since 2022 all his competitors have been chasing him without a chance.

“In the 17 years that I’ve been here, even before I got here, there have been periods of dominance and that continues to happen,” Hamilton lamented at Spielberg. “I was very lucky to have one of these phases and Max (Verstappen, ed.) has one now. The way things are going, it will happen again and again and I don’t think we need that in sport.”

And then Hamilton presented his interesting theory of enduring dominance, which is rooted in the development cycles of the teams. Teams with superior cars, he argued, could start work on their next design earlier than their competitors because they would have fewer resources to devote in the current season. “When you’re that far ahead, 100 points ahead,” he was thinking of the Red Bull team today, “you don’t really have to develop much further on your car so that you can start earlier with the next car.” And even worse: In combination with the recently introduced budget cap, the dominance increases even further: “Because you can spend this year’s money on the next.”

Hamiltons proposes defined periods for construction – Verstappen’s response: “Life is unfair”

Hamilton therefore demands that there should be clearly defined periods of time in which teams can develop their cars for the coming season. “You would have to set a date before which it is not allowed to work on next year’s car. Let’s say August 1. Everyone has to stick to that.”

It should be undisputed that this theory is conclusive and is also covered by the history of the racing series. However, Verstappen, who has won six of the eight races so far this season, his Red Bull team even all of them, he let Hamilton’s reform proposal slip away like a wet fish. “Life is unfair. That’s not only true in Formula 1. We just have to deal with it,” he said, adding the pointed question: “We didn’t talk about that when Lewis won his championships, did we?”

You don’t. Because nobody suggested it. Presumably, the vicious circle of self-fueled superiority can only be broken when a serial winner agrees to a reform that will damage him in the short term. In terms of sport. Only Verstappen could prove this greatness now.

2023-07-01 22:04:18
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