The nineteenth race of the year, the one thousand seventy-fifth (1075) in absolute terms, took place on Sunday, October 23, 2022, at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, USA.

Championship interest was reduced to Max Verstappen’s individual performances and the team’s team success amid logical mourning over the loss of its founder and sponsor, Dietrich Matešić. The great Austrian businessman left behind a fortune of $26 billion, a forty-year career in Formula One and the travails of organizing and managing personal success that have translated into the titles and expectations of thousands of people. From scratch – as he probably wanted to believe– his emergence as a global player in motorsports and extreme sports, which he used as the main pillars of advertising and promotion of the Thai drink Krating Daeng (a mixture of guarana, taurine, caffeine, sucrose and ginseng) is a perfect example of the desired modern human life. The postmodern subject, or neoliberal agent, acts out of touch with his origin, gender, and roots. The only criterion is the calculation of profits and losses, with the ultimate goal of unconditional conquest of desires, which constantly give rise to new desires.

When Matesic first stepped in, Ron Dennis was the archetypal, overbearing F1 team owner, a strict but fair father. But Red Bull has always been a company with a rebellious spirit, which Matesic himself embodied in his more informal personal style. After Red Bull won the first Austrian Grand Prix – essentially their race – the new “man” was visibly happy in the paddock, dressed in a plaid shirt, suede jacket and jeans: an appearance that gave the uninitiated no clue about its importance. . It will never be possible to fully unravel and understand the extent of Matesic’s influence on motorsport, as his strength usually developed in the shadows and with minimal exposure. But a whisper in the right ear from him or even from one of his subordinates on his behalf could make or break careers, build or destroy empires. Such influence is rare in F1 and in the world of motorsport in general. The new “narcissism” is not reflected in the eyes of society or the Protestant “personal” God. This is self-reference. Locked in himself, condemned to the present, he drowns in the lake of his eyes. He dies inside himself, except for the traditional death of Narcissus, who drowned in the lake while trying to embrace his idol.

Maybe that’s why Red Bull didn’t have fans. Max Verstappen is deified as a Dutchman alone. The logo features two large red bulls attacking each other. Bulls are not cattle, but wild gaur, a type of cattle endemic to Southeast Asia called krating (ox) in Thai. Matesic passed on his public image to Christian Horner, who has led the team since 2004. He hired the sport’s most important chief engineer since 1988, Adrian Newey. He appointed Helmut Marko as the head of the internal part of the team, the pilot guide, as well as a lot of money directed to the operational-indirect advertising of the tonic. Red Bull gives wings. The recipe seems to be successful because the new man needs energy to fill his constant movement. And yet, in the end, it’s like an empty shell. Why so much energy? Two cattle butt each other. Without the need. A sponsor who has benefited many, to the point of giving meaning to their existence, but who seems to be called a tonic. They used it as much as its mortality, its packed quantity, would allow. Probably the way he saw himself. He used it as much as his mortality allowed.

Nevertheless, the “man from scratch” left a legacy that, as a good businessman, he had to properly protect. Econacon created history, this enemy of history. Characteristic of Matešić’s radical imagination is what he was aiming for when he bought the Salzburg football team: he removed the traditional purple jersey color and replaced it with red, thus provoking a reaction from the city’s residents who refounded the old team. There is now one team in Formula 1, Red Bull, who dream of building their own engines from 2026. Of course, the desire belonged to the deceased, but apart from impending death and the eternal will that it interrupted, it eventually gave rise to expectations that went beyond this very one. Perhaps the totality of the individual wills of the people of the group will give rise to a living organism that exists beyond the expected limit of mortality. The one that competes in the souls of people with the crazy horse Ferrari, the shining star of Mercedes, McLaren, Renault, Williams, Jaguar, the story of human faith in ephemeral life and beyond. Danke Didi, whatever.

Start off: St at turn one, thinking he was in an impromptu coast road race, attempts to make up for his slow start and wedges in Verstappen, left in front of Russell, achieving his sixth retirement of the year. An outstanding record for a driver for a championship team.

6/56: Leclerc moves up to seventh after starting from twelfth.

8/56: Verstappen is moving at a speed of 1΄42΄412, 4/10΄΄ faster than the second Hamilton. He seems to be in control of the match.

11/56: Bottas starts the tire change dance. Next are Tsunoda and Riccardo. All wear the strongest rubber available, white and code c2.

12/56: Hamilton drives into the pits and exits seventh on hard rubber. The race will be characterized by a double pit stop. In the next round, the rest of the pioneers enter. except Leclerc.

18/56: Bottas is out at turn 19. The safety car is in charge of the race. Leclerc wins for a shorter tire change (25 minutes) and takes 4th place on the track.

22/56: Immediately after the restart of the race, Alonso miscalculates Stroll’s pass, steps on his rear left wheel, takes off, spoils the Canadian’s race, but miraculously survives and continues after visiting the pits, leaving the track a bombed-out landscape. At the restart, Verstappen continues to lead with a clear tempo of 4/10΄΄.

30/56: Leclerc starts putting pressure on Perez. He overtakes him on the 12th move.

35/56: You are answering the pits. Red Bull is making one of the most time-consuming changes. 11.1΄΄ at the bus stop. The screwdriver is stuck in the wheel. Verstappen enters the track in 6th and is angry at the mechanics. With some reassurance from mechanic Gianpiero Lambiase, the Dutchman regained his composure and began closing the gap on Hamilton by two places and six seconds with 20 laps to go. Leclerc and Verstappen wear yellow tyres, code c3.

39/56: Verstappen overtakes Leclerc in turn 2.

41/56: Hamilton overtakes Vettel, who misses the pit stop anyway, to take first place.

42/56: Verstappen is steadily reduced by 2/10 of Hamilton.

47/56: After five laps of this chase, when the gap narrowed to 2.5 seconds, the gap between the tires began to close. But the hurricane force of wind gusts on the 1st orbit, 11th and 12th orbits divided their favor to each other in order. This can create a gap of up to 0.7s on a circle and they will hit first one and then the other on different circles. That is why the difference between them was acrobatic. But it gave the impression that Hamilton had a chance to stabilize the situation. He didn’t. But the image was an illusion anyway. Mercedes is inferior to Red Bull. It can have a lot of downforce at high speeds. But it’s slow on the straights and terribly unpredictable in the low speeds. Mark Hughes correctly analyzes: “The Red Bull drops low on its soft rear suspension at speed, reducing drag. There has been speculation that Red Bull has a trick to locking the linkage above a certain speed (like Mercedes did last year), but that’s almost certainly not the case as the current regulations make that nearly impossible. able to handle a softer rear suspension, allowing it to be set higher than all others when stationary, but lower at speed, without causing the aerodynamic tuning that would normally result from it.”

50/56: Hamilton knew that Verstappen would come. There were five laps left – five laps too many for him. He knew he was entering turn 12 at the end of the back straight DRS zone. But he didn’t know exactly where the Red Bull was because his mirrors were shaking like crazy. He later asked Verstappen if he had the same problem. “No,” Max replied. “We used to have them, but we replaced the plastic ones with glass ones.” With the advantage of DRS and the detuning of Hamilton’s powertrain, the speed gap was 40 km/h when Verstappen dived inside. Hamilton moved to the left, but hesitantly due to poor visibility, and Verstappen passed. They each played with the track limits as Hamilton continued the pursuit, and each took black and white warning flags, and that too before Hamilton’s tires lost steam in the final three laps. The humble ceremony ended. Leclerc retained third place. The degradation of Perez’s tires did not allow him to claim something better. Thus, he was in third place in the overall ranking.

55/56: Russell switches to red tires, code c4, and sets the fastest lap of the race. Norris finishes 6th and Alonso 7th up to a 20-inch penalty. Vettel is in 8th place.

Verstappen leads the drivers’ standings by 124 points, while Leclerc leads Perez by 2 points. Red Bull leads Ferrari in the constructors’ standings with 187 points. Mercedes is third, 53 points behind second. Red Bull has officially become the champion.

The next race will take place a week later in Mexico City at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, which is 2 km above sea level, making the 4.3 km lap breathtaking. In a race that is expected to be interesting only in terms of second place drivers, between the “Prince” of Monaco and the “Aztec” of Mexico.