Verstappen claims first F1 hat trick when Hamilton suffers his own triple blow

Max Verstappen achieved a Formula 1 career for the first time when he secured a hat trick in France with pole, victory and the fastest lap.

It was the 61st French Grand Prix, 17th at the Le Castellet circuit, and in recent years it has been a Mercedes track that Hamilton won from pole position in 2018 and 2019 [the race was not held last year].

Article continues under video

The reigning champions were confidently beaten on this occasion, while there was further evidence in the wider field that Lando Norris is “the best of the rest”, a clear sign that Fernando Alonso is back in his game and a small cheer for Haas.

Here are some of the top stats from last weekend.

Hat-trick hero Verstappen

By last weekend, Verstappen had completed 125 races without a clean result, where he put everything together to get his fifth pole, his 13th win and his 13th fastest lap.

It was the third time that he converted the pole to victory [on the other two occasions he was second] and it was also the third time that he set the fastest lap in victory.

Verstappen was in control for most of the weekend and set the fastest time in two of the three practice sessions and two of the three qualifying sections. Sergio Perez made it onto the podium with two Red Bulls for the first time since Bahrain last year.

Three in a row for Red Bull

Since the introduction of the turbo-hybrid era in 2014, Mercedes has, as is well known, dominated, winning seven consecutive drivers ‘and constructors’ championships, leaving rivals a victory here and there.

However, the Mercedes crown has slipped so far this season that for the first time in this era another team has managed to win three Grand Prix in a row.

After the triumphs in Monaco for Verstappen and Azerbaijan for his team-mate Sergio Perez, Mercedes has to endure a feeling due to the Dutchman’s success in France that it had not experienced since the end of 2013, when Red Bull dominated.

The wrong three in a row for Hamilton

In contrast to Verstappen, Hamilton has not won any of the last three Grand Prix after the start of the season with three wins in the first four races.

The seven-time champion had to be content with second place in France after he was overtaken by Verstappen in the penultimate round, as the respective teams decided on different strategies.

It is the first time since the Belgian, Italian and Singapore Grand Prix in 2019 that the Briton has failed to triumph for three races in a row, 12 points behind his Red Bull rival in the drivers’ standings.

High fives for Norris

Like Verstappen, Norris is in top form this season and has managed to take the “Best of the Rest” position again in France, finishing fifth behind the Red Bull and Mercedes pairings.

It was the sixth time in the seven races that he finished fifth or better [so far his record is 4-3-5-8-3-5-5] and it extended its points streak to 12 races, with its last finish outside the top 10 eight months ago.

McLaren has now taken double points in six of the seven races despite Daniel Ricciardo struggling to get his car under control, but it was only the second time this year [Imola being the other] that both ended up in the top six.

Alonso ‘fight’? Do not think so…

Fernando Alonso has been baffled by questions about his “struggles” at Alpine since returning to F1 this season, and in France he continued to prove the doubter wrong by ahead of teammate Esteban Ocon in the overall standings.

He made his fourth Q3 appearance of the year in qualifying at Paul Ricard, one more than Ocon, and in the race his eighth place was his fourth point of the year [10, 8, 6, 8], matching Ocons four [9, 7, 9, 9] but on a higher level.

Airy heights for Haas

A bitter war seems to be brewing between teammates Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin at Haas, but while team boss Günther Steiner has his hands full, he had at least one small reason to smile in France.

Schumacher gave Haas his first Q2 appearance since the Nürburgring in 2020, ending a run of 12 consecutive Q1 outings. The joy in the race was not great, however, as both Haas cars ended up in the last two places.

Record reliability

The days of missing half the field are long gone, but despite the significant improvements in reliability, this was only the 10th time in F1 history that a race has had ZERO failures.

The reliability of modern cars is made clear by a second exit status – that six of these 10 full-field placements came in the turbo-hybrid era.