Piquant in the puszta:verstappen on attack course

Max verstappen will provide the extra spice in the puszta. A week after his triumphant victory at the german grand prix, the 21-year-old red-bull star can and will work his way up to second place in the world championship.

The dutchman wants to shorten the gap to formula 1 leader lewis hamilton even further. "I like the hungarian ring, it’s one of my favorite tracks," he said. The entire team is looking forward to this race. "It’s one of the hayest of the year and normally the course suits us," stressed the dutchman.

The starting position promises excitement despite the rough gaps in the classement: here a verstappen in top form, often accompanied by thousands of fans in orange, and a sebastian vettel after the perceived sporting resurrection at his home race at the hockenheimring. There a sickly defending champion hamilton. No one has won more often on the 4.381-kilometer circuit. And after the youngest mercedes "armageddon" (team boss toto wolff), hamilton wants to send the silver arrow crew, accustomed to success, off into the four-week vacation with a feeling of hurrah.

Only ninth place remained for hamilton in hockenheim after his pole position, the mishaps of the team and himself have left their mark. "I don’t lye, it hollisch hurts," the brite confessed. Counting on the five-time champion and his still title-obsessed squad to provide involuntary horsepower slapstick more often this year, V(ettel)& V(erstappen) but not. "You learn from these days and move forward," announced hamilton, who first prescribed rest for a quick recovery.

There’s no question that mercedes will fight back after the complete disaster at the crazy german race, where world championship runner-up valtteri bottas didn’t even make it to the finish line. "We can’t assume that they won’t score any more points for the rest of the season ? Rather the opposite," predicted the native of heppenheim, who despite second place at hockenheim is still separated from hamilton by 84 points. Verstappen in third place, 63 points behind the 34-year-old briton.

Not a little, but not an impossible amount. Especially since verstappen, who once had a not unjustified reputation as a rowdy, has been working on himself. He still drives uncompromisingly; vettel’s teammate charles leclerc got a taste of it shortly before the end of his victory in austria. Verstappen, who was the youngest driver to enter formula 1 at the age of 17 and this year has already won his 100th race. Will complete races has matured. And that with 21.

In the past 20 races, the dutchman, whose father jos once drove a formula 1 car himself and was even michael schumacher’s teammate, has always finished among the top five. Four times he finished fifth, five times fourth, five times third, three times second and three times first. And that with a red-bull racing car, which even after the engine change from renault to honda still does not have the exceptional format of earlier versions, when vettel had won his four world championship titles with the austrian team from 2010 to 2013.

In contrast to vettel, who has been winless for almost a year, verstappen also makes the most of the mercedes man’s weaknesses. His chances of success, however, always seem to increase when the action on the track is to the taste of the racing spectacle fan. If necessary, verstappen will take care of it himself.