Red Bull’s Max Verstappen took the position of the pole for the Italian Grand Prix and surged five points from Lewis Hamilton at the Formula One Championship after the Sprint qualifying competition on Saturday.
Mercedes’s Mercedes’s Teammate Valtteri Bottas won the sprint but the engine penalty sent Finn to the back of the grid for the main event on Sunday at Monza.
While Verstappen was placed perfectly for the eighth victory in 14 races, seven-time world champion Hamilton would start fourth and with the championship gap in danger of dropping a double number.
“The race is better than expected, we print a few good little points.
This will be an interesting race tomorrow,” said Verstappen, secondly on the plaid flag.
McLaren, Australia Daniel Ricciardo will join the 23-year-old Dutch player in the front row for the first time since the couple is a teammate at Red Bull in 2018.
Botas took three points of the championship, Verstappen two and Ricciardo.
Mercedes has planned to impose the team’s orders for their drivers to exchange places during the race and maximize Hamilton’s points, but that opportunity never materialized.
Hamilton only recaptured a place when Alphaturi Pierre Gasmy, last year’s surprise winner at the Race of the Italian team’s house, breaking his front wing which lodged under the car and dropped it.
It took out a safety car until the end of the lap three and Hamilton could not be close enough to Norris afterwards to try to catch up.
“It’s not great,” said Briton about that afternoon.
“I have to try and find out how I can survive and try to limit damage.” You see the rate of Red Bull, they are very fast.
It must be an easy victory (for verstappen) and I have to try and pass two people (Ricciardo and Norris) in front.
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