Max Verstappen will search a hat-trick of residence wins for Pink Bull and an early lead within the drivers championship at this weekend’s delayed and considerably surreal season-opening Austrian Grand Prix. For everybody concerned, the race can be an unprecedented expertise – the calendar is unknown past the primary eight races in Europe in 10 weeks, all to be run behind closed doorways and extreme limitations launched with a brand new paddock protocol forbidding conferences. As racing returns, the COVID-19 virus stays in circulation, which requires all members to be examined earlier than journey to Austria on personal chartered jets, ongoing exams, the separation of groups and automobile crews into “bubbles” and managed inns.
Groups are minimize to a most of 80 employees, all in protecting gear, there can be no sponsors, no visitors and solely a restricted variety of accredited broadcast and written information media.
Journalists, restricted to a dozen as an alternative of 300 or extra, should cross a take a look at inside 72 hours upfront of arrival and won’t be allowed to depart the media centre.
All interviews and information conferences will happen by video.
The groups can be stored remoted, based mostly in tents with awnings as an alternative of their ordinary grand motorhomes – and there’s anticipated to be a synchronised taking the knee by the drivers on the grid, to assist Black Lives Matter, forward of Sunday’s race.
Afterwards, there can be no podium ceremony.
When the race begins, it would finish the longest hole between races within the sport since 1962, however with two successive races in Austria after which one in Hungary, the stress can be rapid and intense.
Pink Bull group boss Christian Horner mentioned: “There’s been an extended drought. All of us do that as a result of we find it irresistible. We have missed it, so we won’t wait to begin.”
“It’ll be thrilling and intense. The races come thick and quick.”
Dutch driver Verstappen, who bullied his well past Ferrari rival Charles Leclerc to triumph in entrance of a mass of his “orange military” of followers final yr, says he’s unfazed by excessive expectations or the absence of spectators on the Pink Bull Ring, a distant and compact circuit within the Styrian Alps.
“I’m not fascinated by a hat-trick,” he mentioned.
“A very powerful factor for me is to have a aggressive automobile and to carry out at my greatest.
“I by no means contemplate myself as a favorite as a result of, truly, whenever you take a look at the monitor, it isn’t even our greatest one, however final yr it was very heat and we have been good at holding the engine cool.
“So I do not count on a simple win – I believe Mercedes can be very robust once more and they’re those to beat.”
Verstappen, who has stored a low profile through the lockdown, delivered three wins and eight podiums final yr as Lewis Hamilton claimed his sixth title with Mercedes, who this yr search an unprecedented seventh constructors’ and drivers’ double in succession.
Verstappen and team-mate Alex Albon can have an upgraded Honda engine package deal, developed for the reason that coronavirus lockdown ended, to spice up them on the contest within the Styrian Alps the place the 800-metre altitude can have an effect on engine efficiency.
Mercedes may also have an up to date package deal whereas Ferrari, struggling to match them in pre-season testing, introduced Tuesday that they’re updating their vehicles for the third race in Hungary.
Promoted
Hamilton this yr bids for a record-equalling seventh drivers title as he campaigns passionately for higher variety, and in opposition to racism, within the sport.
“We’re getting ready the easiest way we will for what will be essentially the most troublesome season that F1 and all of us have skilled,” he mentioned in a video from the group, which – at his prompting — is operating black livery this yr to assist equality and variety.
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