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'Intense battle will see Verstappen and Hamilton take turns making mistakes'

'Intense battle will see Verstappen and Hamilton take turns making mistakes'

14-06-2021 15:21 Last update: 15:57
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GPblog.com

In his column for The Race, Scott Mitchell talks about the mistakes of Verstappen and Red Bull Racing. Max Verstappen says it is "clear" that Red Bull is not making more mistakes in the title race, but that in the early stages his team's real advantage lies in the significance of the mistakes, not the quantity.

According to Mitchell, he doesn't quite agree, writing: "Part of what Verstappen said is questionable as on the balance of the season so far, he and Red Bull have still made more errors."

He continues: "Verstappen’s mistakes amount to going off-track passing Hamilton in Bahrain and finished second after handing back the lead; making an error on his final Q3 run at Imola and starting third instead of first; losing pole in Portugal (and starting third again) after exceeding track limits then losing fastest lap and a bonus point in the race for the same thing; coming in for a pitstop when he wasn’t called in at the Spanish GP but avoiding any loss of position as a result."

Hamilton made fewer, but bigger mistakes

When his mistakes are written out like this it seems quite a list, but according to Mitchell they are nowhere near as big as Hamilton's. For example, the blunder in Baku was a huge mistake by the Englishman, which lost him a huge tally of points. In Imola, Hamilton skidded off the track and damaged his front wing, but was lucky with the red flag. However, because the title fight is so tight, incidents that might otherwise seem minor also matter.

"As this battle is so intense, mistakes will probably switch from one side to the other almost as much as poles and victories. They have so far, which is why Verstappen’s not suggesting Red Bull’s been error-free – he’s just jumped at the chance to contest which team is actually error-prone," ends Mitchell.