Carlos Sainz has had a difficult season with Ferrari so far with his P4 finish in Austria being his best of the campaign. However, things went downhill for Sainz as he was demoted to P6 after being given a time penalty for track limit infringements. However, it turns out that the post-race time penalty was not the only thing that Sainz would want to forget from his weekend in Spielberg. The Spanish driver was brutally disrespected during the race by winner Max Verstappen.
Verstappen had yet another flawless race as he extended his run to five consecutive wins. The Red Bull driver started from pole and after fending off an initial attack from Charles Leclerc, he cruised his way towards victory.
Later on in the race, Verstappen once found himself trailing the Ferraris. The Maranello-based outfit had pitted their cars under a Virtual Safety Car. Verstappen pitted later and came out behind Sainz and Leclerc, and had work to do to reclaim the lead.
However, overtaking the two Ferraris seemed like a piece of cake for Verstappen with his dominant RB19. He retook the lead with ease and stayed at the front to win his seventh race of the season. Verstappen also decided to put some icing on the cake as he was caught showing off during the race.
Max Verstappen waved to Carlos Sainz while overtaking him
After trailing the Ferraris for a few lap following the pit stop, Max Verstappen set up a move on Sainz on lap 25. The Red Bull driver tried to go around the outside of turn 4 but then decided on a switchback.
Verstappen got massive traction out of the corner and passed Sainz’s Ferrari with ease. While passing Sainz, Verstappen took his left hand off the wheel and waved goodbye to the Spaniard. This was seemingly a savage move aimed towards Sainz by his former teammate Verstappen, and its video became viral all over social media. It was shared by Eyan Low too, on Twitter.
On lap 34, Verstappen finally came within the DRS range of Leclerc. Then it was only a matter of time till the Dutchman got the overtake done. Verstappen took the lead of the race on the next lap itself, and it was job done for Red Bull.
Verstappen decided to flex on Leclerc as well
Sainz wasn’t the only victim to Verstappen’s flexes at the Red Bull Ring on Sunday. Leclerc was also shown his place by the Red Bull driver towards the end of the race. With only two laps to go till the finish, Verstappen decided to pit for softer tires, making a major gamble on his 24-second lead over the Monegasque driver.
He put on new tires to go for the fastest lap attempt. When he came out of the pits, he was still about four seconds ahead of Leclerc. Eventually, Verstappen won the race with a gap of more than five seconds to Leclerc, despite risking it all by pitting at the end.
After the race, Verstappen made it clear that he was confident about his win no matter what happened. “Basically, it wouldn’t have mattered what kind of strategy they had. We always had the upper hand in the race,” said Verstappen as per BBC’s podcast.
It is evident that the Max Verstappen is brimming with confidence. He also has huge faith in his team. This is probably just the start of the Verstappen Show.
