The United States has a western cowboy for a one-on-one duel, and this time the United States stands at COTA and there is also a very classic duel, and the tension of not knowing who will die in the end completely overshadows drowsiness. In the end, Verstappen won a crucial victory under pressure, and it seems that it is one step closer to the throne of its first championship.
In this game, both title contenders have shown phenomenal standards, and while everyone is still on Earth, Hamilton and Verstappen are already on Mars, and even the recent Perez is 40 seconds behind them. And this analysis will naturally focus on Hamilton and Verstappen, why is Mei Ben so hot this time? What is there to praise about Verstappen this time?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="4" > Focus 1: Verstappen played a wonderful battle</h1>
This race is reminiscent of San Marino in 2005, when a seven-time champion was struggling to catch up from behind, but he couldn't beat the car, and it was a young man in his 20s who was fighting for his first world title who withstood the pressure and finally won the race by 0.2 seconds. The wonderful story of Schumacher vs Alonso in that year is now staged by Hamilton and Verstappen relay.
Speaking of the race, the victory of Red Bull in this station consists of two parts, the first is the strategy, in the early stage of the game, Red Bull successfully grabbed the leading position with an undercut, which is a normal tactical idea, after all, COTA is a more tire-eating track, and the advantage brought by the new tires is not small. The second is due to Verstappen's excellent performance, which is also the biggest key to winning. I have to say that he has a championship style at this station, and he also showed excellent handling ability at key moments, because if you look closely, you will find that Verstappen's victory was not easy to come by.
Time back to lap 29, when Hamilton was just in time to chase into Verstappen's three-second zone, and Red Bull, fearing that Meypen would treat him the way he did, called the Dutch driver in early, with almost half the race left.
However, Verstappen's play overshadowed the problem. Tactically, he advised the team through Team Radio that Perez also pitt early to avoid Hamilton having too much tactical space ahead. On the other hand, he did a very good job of keeping tires this time, and if you look closely at Verstappen's car, you will find that he will brake early and loosen the throttle a little in some corners, in order to reduce the chance of locking, but also reduce the pressure on the tires, which is very difficult to continue to do this in a curvy and uneven track. And this is also very critical, because in the final stages, Verstappen's tyres are thus given enough margin to advance, even faster than Hamilton.
It was precisely the above key play that allowed Verstappen to achieve a key victory with a slight advantage. There are still 5 games to go before the final winner is announced, but at least as far as the championship of this game is concerned, Verstappen brought everyone a very high level of performance.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="10" > focus 2: Meben's large-hot inverting stove with variable suspension</h1>
On the other side of the garage, Mei Benjin Station can be described as a big hit, because in terms of the characteristics of the track, COTA is very suitable for W12, and the team has a brilliant track here. This was supposed to be Hamilton's chance to regain the lead in the table, but in the end it turned out to be pulled away by Verstappen.
Of course, it wasn't Hamilton's fault. In terms of performance, from the beginning of the game to the moment of the result, Hamilton is driving the W12 to the upper limit, whether it is the center of the bend or the angle of the corner, he is almost the most extreme line, but unfortunately it is still a little bit to turn the tables. On the strategy, in fact, Mei Ben's strategy group has done quite well, the first pit stop by the rear of the Red Bull undercut is understandable, and the follow-up to think of using newer tires to do the chase is also reasonable, because the data is that Red Bull's white tire is difficult to survive almost 30 laps. In fact, if it wasn't Verstappen in front of you, or if you ran 1 or 2 laps longer, it might have been Hamilton who would have won.
But why can't W12 run the momentum and speed of Friday? They were a full 1 second ahead on Friday. And don't they have "variable suspension" black technology? How did you suddenly lose to Red Bull?
Regarding this, you can pay attention to the small details after FP1. Mei Ben's engineers have been repairing and reinforcing the base plate after the practice match. Because of the variable suspension, the W12's base plate is pressed lower than other cars, which makes the car's base plate and diffuser have been violently colliding with the bumpy ground of COTA, so in order to avoid the W12 being withdrawn due to damage to the bottom plate in the race, the team did not use the variable suspension at this station, and also increased the height of the suspension. In other words, Meben ran the race with an abnormal adjustment, which can be confirmed by Wolff's post-match visit.
This is a good explanation for why Mei Ben lost the advantage of nearly 1 second overnight, which is why Mei Ben was in cota hot stove. And that makes the next few races very interesting – if Hamilton only lost to Verstappen in an abnormally adjusted run, then once the W12 used the variable suspension in the next few races, wouldn't they regain the advantage and dominance? Either way, the next few races should be very exciting.