his career and led most of the race before being passed in the closing laps by Hamilton, who had made another stop for fresh tyres in a gamble to catch the leader. Before the Belgian Grand Prix, Verstappen received a new teammate in Alexander Albon after Pierre Gasly was demoted back to Toro Rosso. In the race, Verstappen had a poor start and collided with Kimi Räikkönen at the first corner, resulting in suspension damage and causing Verstappen's first retirement of the season. In Italy, he did not set a time during qualifying after his car lost power in Q1, but he was already required to start from the back of the grid due to an engine component penalty. After damaging his front wing on the first lap, he recovered to finish the race in eighth place. third and fourth-place finishes followed in Singapore and Russia respectively. After suffering damage in a first-lap collision with Charles Leclerc in Japan, Verstappen suffered his second retirement of the season. In Mexico, he qualified in first place after setting the fastest lap-time of the session, before being handed a grid penalty for ignoring yellow flags after a crash by Valtteri Bottas. Verstappen suffered a puncture early in the race after making contact with Bottas, falling to the back of the field before eventually recovering to sixth place. A third-place finish in the United States followed, before Verstappen took the second pole position of his career with a 1:07.508 pole lap time in Brazil. In a chaotic race, he passed Lewis Hamilton for the lead on two occasions before going on to claim his third victory of the season. Verstappen ended the season with a second-place finish in Abu Dhabi. Verstappen finished the 2019 season in third place in the championship with 278 points. He claimed three race victories, nine podium finishes, two pole positions, and three fastest laps. 2020 season: Third in the Championship In 2020, Verstappen signed a contract extension to race for Red Bull until the end of . Verstappen continued to race for Red Bull in , alongside Albon. At the 2020 Austrian Grand Prix, he started second, but retired early in the race after a flywheel-related problem caused an electronic issue within the power unit. Honda introduced countermeasures in response to the retirement. At the 2020 Hungarian Grand Prix, he crashed in wet conditions during the formation lap while