On 13 May 2018, Max Verstappen finished third in the Spanish Grand Prix and gave Red Bull Racing its 150th Formula 1 podium.
It was not a smooth podium. Verstappen damaged his front wing after contact with Lance Stroll, then had to keep Sebastian Vettel’s Ferrari behind him to protect third place. Red Bull milestone achieved, with the usual Formula 1 garnish: missing carbon fibre and rising blood pressure.
A podium Red Bull needed
The 2018 Spanish Grand Prix came after a messy start to Verstappen’s season.
He had been fast, but the opening rounds had brought errors, incidents and frustration. Barcelona gave him something cleaner: a first podium of the year and a result Red Bull could build around.
Lewis Hamilton won for Mercedes, Valtteri Bottas finished second, and Verstappen took third. Daniel Ricciardo was fifth in the other Red Bull, so the team had pace, points and evidence that its upgraded car had not arrived merely to make the hospitality unit feel optimistic.
For Verstappen, third place was a reset.
For Red Bull, it was podium number 150.
Vettel fell behind
The race turned on Ferrari’s decision to pit Sebastian Vettel under the Virtual Safety Car.
That stop dropped Vettel behind Bottas and Verstappen. From there, Verstappen’s job was simple in theory and extremely annoying in practice: keep a Ferrari behind on a track where mistakes are punished and following another car is rarely a spa treatment.
Barcelona is not usually generous to late attacking charges. Track position matters, tyre life matters, and the dirty air behind another car can make ambition look very untidy.
Vettel closed, but Verstappen had enough grip, enough pace and enough control to hold third.
Then came the wing damage.
The front wing problem
After the Virtual Safety Car period, Verstappen made contact with Lance Stroll’s Williams and damaged the left side of his Red Bull’s front wing.
A piece came loose. The car did not look happy.
That could have turned a steady podium into an expensive lesson in why Formula 1 front wings are not decorative items. Instead, Verstappen kept going and found that the damage was manageable.
The car picked up some oversteer, but not enough to destroy his pace. Vettel remained behind. The gap tightened late on, especially as fuel saving came into the picture, but Verstappen held the position.
It was exactly the sort of podium that tells a slightly better story because it was not perfect.
A flawless third place is useful. A third place with a wounded front wing and a Ferrari behind it is easier to remember.
Red Bull’s 150th podium
Red Bull’s 150th podium said plenty about how quickly the team had become part of Formula 1’s front-running furniture.
Its first podium had come in 2006. By 2018, the team had already won championships, built title cars, survived regulation shifts and turned itself from energy drink disruptor into one of the sport’s permanent headaches.
The 150th podium did not come from a dominant win or a clean one-two. It came from Verstappen managing damage and pressure, which felt more appropriate than it probably should.
Red Bull has always liked the clean headline.
It has often produced the messy version first.
The Verstappen version of damage control
Verstappen’s race in Spain was not one of his great wins, because it was not a win at all. But it was a useful snapshot of a driver becoming harder to shake.
Earlier in 2018, the criticism had been louder. In Barcelona, he had to do a more mature job: accept the position, manage the tyres, live with the damage and not turn Vettel’s pursuit into another incident.
That was the value of the podium.
It was not spectacular in the way his 2016 Spain win had been. It was not a record-breaking eruption. It was a controlled recovery drive that gave Red Bull a milestone and gave Verstappen a calmer Sunday after too many noisy ones.
The front wing looked damaged.
The result did not.
