AFTER winning the race at Imola, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen looked keen to keep up his momentum and take the lead away from defending champion Lewis Hamilton.
But luck was not on Verstappen’s side from the very beginning, as he had his lap time of 1m18.209s deleted during qualifying, which meant that he had to settle for third behind the Mercedes duo of Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas on Sunday’s grid.
In a rather uneventful race, Valtteri Bottas had a good start and was leading for almost 20 laps until he was eclipsed by his teammate.
“I didn’t quite get as good a start as Valtteri and then lost out at the restart, which was not good. I had to try and reposition myself,” Hamilton said to the Associated Press. “I think Max made a mistake at some point and that was perfect. With Valtteri I had to make the move early before the tires were destroyed, and I just managed to get him.”
Contrary to his amazing opening lap performance at last year’s Portuguese GP, the grid’s veteran, Kimi Raikkonen, had to immediately retire when he hit the back of his teammate, Antonio Giovinazzi, causing him to lose his front wing. His retirement brought out the safety car that lasted until the end of Lap 6, and Verstappen wasted no time as he immediately overtook Hamilton to take 2nd place.
McLaren’s Lando Norris also moved up to 4th, but caused a stir on Red Bull’s side as they argued that his overtake on Sergio Perez should be considered illegal for exceeding track limits. Whether or not the young Brit was told by McLaren to yield, the position immediately went back to Perez as Norris’ tires were already wearing off.
Carlos Sainz was the first one to pit as he switched to a fresh set of mediums by Lap 21. His teammate, Charles Leclerc, was then the first to switch to the hard tires — a move closely observed by the frontrunners.
While the rest of the pack had already gotten new rubber, Perez was doing a superb job in aiding his tires as he managed to hold on to them for a little over 50 laps before switching to the softs. He was leading for a bit before pitting, until Hamilton used his new set to edge out the Mexican.
Perez did manage to get the seal of approval from the F1 fans with the stellar drive that he displayed and this led to him being voted Driver of the Day.
As the race neared its end, both Verstappen and Bottas switched to softs in an attempt to get the fastest lap. Bottas got the better end as Verstappen had his lap time deleted, just like in qualifying, which meant that the Finn would be rewarded with the additional point.
When told about the deletion during post-race track interviews, Verstappen told AP, “Really? OK. That’s a bit odd."
This race marked Hamilton’s 97th win and has extended his championship lead by 8 points over Verstappen, who finished the race in 2nd.
“That was such a tough race, physically and mentally, keeping everything together,” Hamilton said to AP. “Right on my limit. Great race.”
Bottas moved up to 4th in the standings after leaving the Algarve International Circuit in 3rd, and this meant that he has now gone ahead of Leclerc who sits at 5th with 28 points overall.
Meanwhile, Norris maintained his spot behind Verstappen as his teammate, Daniel Ricciardo, remained in 7th after finishing the race in P9.
Alpine was happy to get both cars into the top 10 during their strongest weekend so far as Esteban Ocon and 2-time World Champion Fernando Alonso finished at P7 and P8 respectively.
On the other hand, Aston Martin endured a tough session as both drivers finished outside of the points.
Haas’ Nikita Mazepin finished last with penalties under his belt for blocking Perez and ignoring the blue flags.
Here are the final results of the race:
With quotes from the Associated Press.
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