THE PORTUGUESE GP IN 3 KEY MOMENTS
1 Bottas undone by another Hamilton masterclass
“He just drove an immaculate race. It makes no sense to talk about these exceptional Lewis performances, because it’s his standard now...”
You might expect such effusive praise from the team boss of the winning driver, but Toto Wolff made a valid point all the same. No matter the unfavourable circumstances thrown at him, Lewis Hamilton nearly always seems to find a way.
It wasn’t quite as challenging as Imola, but nevertheless Hamilton had no business winning the Portuguese Grand Prix once Valtteri Bottas converted pole position into the race lead and Max Verstappen opportunistically overtook Lewis after the Safety Car restart.
“I was focusing on Valtteri and l for a split second looked in my mirrors to see where Max was and in that split second that’s when Valtteri went,” is how Hamilton explained his uncharacteristic sluggishness. “I pulled out and gave Max Valtteri’s tow and I was like, ‘you idiot’, to myself…”
After making the best of Saturday’s blustery conditions to bag his first pole of 2021 – by just 0.007 seconds – Bottas now had everything within his grasp, but not for the first time he struggled to turn a chokehold into suffocation by squeezing the life out of the race.
Hamilton, running a skinnier rear wing than Bottas, made short work of re-passing Verstappen – using DRS approaching Turn 1 – then pulled a similar move on Bottas at the start of lap 20/66 (on the outside this time), having finally managed to keep close enough through the downforce-sapping long-radius final corners of the Portimão circuit.
“Disappointing” was Valtteri’s summation. “When you start from pole position, you have only one target for the race and that is to win. It didn’t happen so I’m disappointed – but I don’t really know why in the first stint I didn’t really have the pace.
“I felt everything – in terms of the race start, the restart – was good from my side but I could see quite early on with the mediums, I just didn’t have pace like Lewis and Max had. I have no idea why. I don’t have the explanation.”
Bottas improved on the hard tyre – once he’d given up second to Verstappen exiting Turn 4 having struggled, like everyone else, to get the compound ‘switched on’ after his pitstop. But that improvement only extended to matching Hamilton’s pace, not beating it. That poor first stint on mediums completely undid Bottas.
He was at least coming back against Verstappen until some of Valtteri’s infamous bad luck – this time a faulty exhaust sensor – temporarily robbed the W12 of power and let Max off the hook. Already this championship is looking like a two-horse race. Bottas still trails Mclaren’s Lando Norris by five points…
2 Red Bull rues track limits clampdown (again)
Max Verstappen almost bagged pole and fastest lap but lost both to track limits offences, leading Helmut Marko to rue FIA inconsistency while lamenting Red Bull now having lost a race (in Bahrain), pole and a fastest lap bonus point because of Max’s transgressions.
“Norris overtook Pérez, went over with all four wheels, and there were no consequences,” Marko told Sky Sports. “So, it’s not consistent, and that’s not racing when you juggle the rules like that.”
Marko was referring to an incident just after the Safety Car restart, in which Mclaren’s Norris ran too wide exiting Turn 4 then passed Sergio Pérez’s Red Bull into Turn 5. Pérez, who finished fourth, said he didn’t defend because he figured the overtake would be ruled illegal. “I misjudged it there,” said Pérez. “A shame because that cost me my race.”
Race director Michael Masi said the incident was reported by Red Bull, reviewed, then rejected on the grounds the pass itself happened at Turn 5 not 4. Verstappen’s ‘pole lap’ was rightly expunged for an offence at Turn 4. Similarly, his fastest lap of the race (set after both he and Bottas stopped late for fresh tyres) was correctly deleted after he went wide exiting Turn 14.
Max was only 4.1s behind Hamilton before that stop, but would the race have gone differently had he been on pole? Christian Horner seemed doubtful. “We lacked a bit of straightline speed,” Horner said of RB16B, which featured “subtle” upgrades here. “It was easier for them [Mercedes] to pass us than us to pass them. We are satisfied we’ve had a decent performance at a track we finished [genuinely] 30 seconds behind at last year.”
3 Norris stars again as Alpine joins the fight
The incredibly tight battle between those titans of the 2000s, Ferrari and Mclaren, continued at the front of the midfield, while the renamed Alpine (née Renault) team also got into the mix after a couple of difficult races.
Carlos Sainz secured Class B ‘pole’ on Saturday and rose to fourth at the start – but switching from soft to medium tyres instead of hards at his sole pitstop proved erroneous as Sainz’s Ferrari tore up the tyres and plummeted out of the points.
Lando Norris remains impressively “at one” with his Mclaren, according to team boss Andreas Seidl. Norris starred again, producing a punchy drive that briefly had him running ahead of Pérez’s Red Bull.
Having impressively progressed through Q2 on mediums, Leclerc mirrored the strategy of the frontrunners (medium/hard) to finish sixth, within five seconds of Norris. Leclerc was happy with his performance after a “messy” Friday and Saturday.
Daniel Ricciardo’s Mclaren recovered from a “not acceptable” qualifying performance (16th) to finish ninth, behind the Alpines of Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso.
With Enstone’s troublesome windtunnel fixed, the A521 featured a new floor and looked properly competitive. Ocon qualified sixth on merit, while Alonso was “not comfortable” and “angry” after qualifying 13th but recovered to finish 1.059s adrift.