'Joy quickly faded when Mercedes underestimated Verstappen's undercut'

The French Grand Prix ended with Red Bull Racing and Max Verstappen as winners, and with Lewis Hamilton as the clear loser. In his column for Formula1.com Lawrence Barretto discusses what went right for Red Bull, and what went wrong for Mercedes.

For a while, it looked like things would work out for Mercedes. After Verstappen took pole on Saturday, he gave away the lead with a mistake in the first corner. The Dutchman fought back at the first pitstop but had to come in again and could start his race again.

Red Bull is perfect

''His heart must have been broken when he heard he had to go in for the second time. However, with the speed of the RB16B, fresh tyres and his immense talent, he had an advantage that allowed his title rival, Lewis Hamilton, to overtake. With that, he achieved a hat-trick with a pole, victory and fastest lap for the first time in his career,'' says the F1 journalist.

''Strategically, Red Bull did a perfect job in France. They were aggressive to avoid a repeat of the Spanish GP. Verstappen's victory was the third in a row for Red Bull, which is the first time since 2013. With Sergio Perez in ever-improving form, Red Bull now leads the constructors' classification by an impressive 37 points.''

Mistake by Mercedes

At Mercedes, they still had hope up until the end of the race, but in the last few laps of the race, everything suddenly went wrong. Red Bull Racing had a better strategy for Verstappen and Perez, which Mercedes could not respond to. After driving 1 and 2 for a long time, Mercedes had to settle for 2 and 4.

''Hamilton won't have believed his eyes when he got the lead from Verstappen on lap one, but the joy quickly dissipated when Mercedes underestimated the power of Verstappen's undercut, and he lost his lead again. He did everything he could to put pressure on Verstappen, which forced Max into a pit stop. The life Hamilton had squeezed out of his tyres in those laps, he was hopeless against the onrushing Verstappen in the final laps of the race. It is the first time since 2019 that Hamilton has not won three races in a row,'' Barretto concluded.