Bottas wins as Hamilton blasts strategy

FURIOUS Lewis Hamilton gave up the world championship lead to Max Verstappen after finishing fifth at the Turkish Grand Prix.

Hamilton’s Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas, pictured, took the chequered flag at a damp Istanbul Park ahead of Verstappen and Sergio Perez, with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc fourth.

But the seven-time world titlewinner, who started only 11th after an engine penalty, pointed the finger at his Mercedes team for putting him on to new tyres in the closing stages.

Hamilton was on course to finish third with the same rubber he started the race on, before Mercedes’ safety-first approach.

He questioned the decision to stop and snapped “leave me alone” when race engineer Peter Bonnington informed him of the gap to Pierre Gasly in sixth.

Had Hamilton finished third, he would have been one point behind Verstappen. As it stands, he is now six points adrift.

Hamilton qualified fastest, but was thrown back ten places after he incurred a grid penalty for taking on his fourth engine of the campaign. The world champion hoped it would rain, and his wish was answered with persistent drizzle in the hours before the race creating a damp track.

A chaotic start was anticipated but Fernando Alonso was the only victim after he was tagged by Gasly. The Frenchman was handed a five-second penalty, while Alonso was later dealt the same punishment after crashing into Mick Schumacher.

With a dry line failing to emerge as the race progressed, title challenger Verstappen was the first of the leaders to stop for new intermediate tyres on lap 36. The Dutchman emerged from the pits ahead of Perez and Hamilton.

Bottas followed suit a lap later with Leclerc assuming the lead. Red Bull then called Perez in, and Hamilton looked set to stop, too, but the Briton told his Mercedes crew he did not want to.

Up front, Leclerc was unable to make the strategy work and when Bottas passed him for the lead with 11 laps to go the Ferrari driver came in for a change of rubber. That promoted Hamilton to third, but with eight laps to go, he was ordered to come in, dropping him two places and damaging his title hopes.