After trailing Lewis Hamilton in the last laps, Max Verstappen celebrated a remarkable victory in the French F1 GP. Throughout the race, Hamilton, who took the lead on lap 40, was under pressure from Valtteri Bottas and Max Verstappen.
In the last few laps, Verstappen appears to be faster than Hamilton based on the statistics provided. It’s inextricably linked to Verstappen’s tyres, which are newer than Hamilton’s.
Verstappen did enter the pits on lap 31, and as a result, he lost the first position that he had been holding.
On lap 44, Verstappen smoothly passed Bottas and had a gap of five seconds with Hamilton who was in pole position.
Hamilton fought valiantly to keep his advantage, despite the fact that his margin over Verstappen was dwindling.
Upon entering the 49th lap, Hamilton was 2.3 seconds ahead of Verstappen. Sergio Perez managed to pass Bottas and get into the top three on the same lap.
On lap 50, Verstappen became more aggressive and was only 1.5 seconds away from Hamilton. One lap later, the difference between the two drivers was under one second.
Entering lap 52, Verstappen was able to overtake Hamilton brilliantly and could no longer be bothered to continue to widen the distance. Hamilton, who had lost in terms of speed, was unable to fight back against Verstappen.
Verstappen immediately shot and took more than two seconds ahead of Hamilton in the remaining time.
Verstappen’s victory gave Red Bull their first three-race winning streak in the turbo-hybrid era, and Verstappen also extended his lead over Hamilton in the drivers’ standings to 12 points after setting the best lap in France.
And the Red Bull driver conceded that the picture for his team was looking “good” ahead of back-to-back races at their home track, the Red Bull Ring, starting in a week with the Styrian Grand Prix.