McLaren, and 37 points behind his teammate in third, who had taken two wins in the first six races. In Canada, Verstappen topped all three practice sessions and qualified third, two-tenths off Sebastian Vettel in pole position. He eventually finished third and set the fastest lap of the race. The following race in France brought him second place. In Austria—Red Bull's home track, he started fourth on the grid, passed Kimi Räikkönen before taking advantage of retirement from Valtteri Bottas and a botched pit-stop strategy by Lewis Hamilton, who later had to retire from fourth place, to claim the fourth race victory of his career. In Britain, Verstappen was plagued by issues, finishing the first practice session early due to a gearbox problem and crashing in the second practice session before retiring from the race due to a brake problem. He would then finish fourth in Germany after strategy errors let a recovering Hamilton get past him as he went on to win the race. Verstappen ended the first half of the season with a retirement in Hungary and was narrowly behind his teammate in the championship due to his own recent resurgence and Ricciardo's unreliability. Verstappen enjoyed a very strong second half of the season, achieving podium finishes in Belgium, Singapore, Japan and the United States, the latter of which he achieved second place having started from 18th on the grid due to a suspension failure in qualifying. Following the qualifying session at the Mexican Grand Prix, Verstappen revealed that a mechanical problem with his Red Bull under braking cost him any chance of becoming the youngest-ever Formula One pole-sitter. As a result, Ricciardo beat Verstappen to pole position by just 0.026 seconds. Verstappen had a better start than Ricciardo and took the lead of the race into the first corner, overtaking the fast-starting Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton. Verstappen earned his fifth career win in Mexico. He was poised to win the 2018 Brazilian Grand Prix, having overtaken Räikkönen, Vettel, Bottas, and Hamilton. However, he collided with Force India driver Esteban Ocon who was trying to unlap himself on faster tyres. Ocon received a 10-second stop-and-go penalty for the incident. After the collision with Ocon, Verstappen finished in second place behind Hamilton. During an argument with Ocon after the race, Verstappen pushed the Force India driver, for which he was given two days of "public service" as a penalty