LE CASTELLET, France, jul 24 (AP) \u2014 Max Verstappen won the French Grand Prix on Sunday after Charles Leclerc crashed out while leading, a mistake that dropped the Ferrari driver 63 points behind the defending Formula One champion.<\/p>\n
Verstappen\u2019s seventh win through 12 races this season upped his career total to 27 victories, all with Red Bull. He said his lead in the title race is misleading because Red Bull and Ferrari have been fairly even this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course it\u2019s a great lead but a lot of things can happen. It\u2019s probably a bit bigger than it should have been when you look at the performance of the two cars,\u201d Verstappen said. \u201cWe still need a bit more one-lap race. I think Budapest (Hungary) will be a bit of a struggle for us and Ferrari will be really, really quick.\u201d<\/p>\n
Seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton finished second in his 300th grand prix \u2014 his fourth consecutive podium and highest finish in what\u2019s so far been a winless season \u2014 while teammate George Russell passed Sergio Perez of Red Bull following a late restart to give Mercedes its first double podium of the year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s an incredible result for the team, great job George,\u201d said Hamilton, who estimated sweating out \u201cabout three kilos\u201d as track temperatures hit 51 degrees Celsius (124 Fahrenheit) at the Paul Ricard Circuit in southeastern France.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cIt was a tough race because my drinks bottle didn\u2019t work,\u201d Hamilton said. \u201cBut what a great result considering we\u2019ve been so far off these guys all weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hamilton lay on his back in the cool-down room as Russell watched a replay of the action.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy Lap 20 I was like, \u2018I really could do with a drink,\u2019\u201d Hamilton said. \u201cMaybe the water evaporated.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hamilton\u2019s first win with Mercedes came in Hungary in 2013. H e\u2019s won a record eight times at the Hungaroring, twice as many as Michael Schumacher, and F1 races there next week.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope the car feels good there,\u201d Hamilton said. \u201cI so love that track.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leclerc\u2019s race ended on Lap 18 when he lost the rear of his car coming out of Turn 11, spinning 360 degrees before crashing into a tire wall. Leclerc could not speak at first, breathing heavily in his helmet before telling his team the mishap was caused by a throttle problem.<\/p>\n
He then screamed a furious \u201cNoooooooooo!\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the third time this season Leclerc has failed to finish a race, while Ferrari has had seven DNF\u2019s through 12 races. Leclerc\u2019s failure Sunday came two weeks after a throttle problem almost cost him victory at the Austrian GP.<\/p>\n
Leclerc, who is only seven points ahead of third-place Perez in the title battle, later said the crash was driver error.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll add things up at the end of the season, but if we\u2019re 25 or 30 points short at the season I can only blame myself,\u201d Leclerc said. \u201cI couldn\u2019t go into reverse, but those are small details. You just can\u2019t put a car into the wall.\u201d<\/p>\n
Verstappen was tentative early and Leclerc held him off, but the Dutchman went for an undercut on Lap 17 with hard tires. Ferrari didn\u2019t attempt to counter Red Bull\u2019s strategy, only for Leclerc to crash one lap later.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was an error. It was a bit strange how I lost (the car),\u201d Leclerc said. \u201cIf I stay at this level I certainly don\u2019t deserve to win the championship. Two mistakes, here and Imola, that\u2019s a bit much.\u201d<\/p>\n
Verstappen asked over radio if Leclerc was all right.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m told he is, Max, thanks for asking,\u201d his team replied.<\/p>\n
As drivers switched tires under the safety car, Ferrari\u2019s mistakes continued. Carlos Sainz Jr. received a five-second penalty for an unsafe release that almost led to a collision with a Williams car.<\/p>\n
Sainz had passed Russell and Perez when his team told him to pit for new tires with 10 laps left.<\/p>\n
\u201cCome on, guys, I can\u2019t believe you told me to box then,\u201d Sainz grumbled. \u201cI don\u2019t know why we boxed. I don\u2019t understand.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the race, he explained his position.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt Ferrari we get super criticized for things other teams might go through in their pit stop window. We are not the disaster people seem to say we are,\u201d Sainz said. \u201cYes I wanted to stay out, I maybe saw a podium position. The team has a lot more data on their screens. They did it with the best intentions and best spirit.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy point of view is that if I couldn\u2019t pass Checo, I would box. The moment I passed him, I thought \u2018See if I could pull away.\u2019 At that stage, the numbers said it was impossible I would make it to the end. In the moment my feeling was different but I didn\u2019t see the numbers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Russell tried to squeeze past Perez on the inside and they touched wheels. Perez went off and cut the corner to come back ahead with Russell asking for the position back. Stewards deemed it a racing incident, and Russell eventually passed him anyway.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe restart was tasty,\u201d Russell said. \u201cI got a really nice run and timed it perfectly. It was pretty sweet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Perez finished fourth ahead of Sainz, who earned a bonus point for fastest lap.<\/p>\n
Fernando Alonso of Alpine finished sixth, followed by Lando Norris of McLaren, Esteban Ocon of Alpine, Daniel Ricciardo of McLaren and Lance Stroll of Aston Martin rounding out the top 10.<\/p>\n
Approaching the midway point of the 53-lap race, Mick Schumacher\u2019s Haas was clipped by Zhou Guanyu\u2019s Alfa Romeo and Zhou received a 5-second penalty.<\/p>\n
Sainz started at the back of the grid with Kevin Magnussen as penalty for changes to their engines ahead of the race.<\/p>\n
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LE CASTELLET, France, jul 24 (AP) \u2014 Max Verstappen won the French Grand Prix on Sunday after Charles Leclerc crashed out while leading, a mistake that dropped the Ferrari driver 63 points behind the defending Formula One champion. Verstappen\u2019s seventh win through 12 races this season upped his career total to 27 victories, all with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-196245","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196245\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}