@ValtteriBottas claims his first victory of the season in damp #TurkishGP. #F1

Bottas Turkish GP Victory – Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas clinched a dominant victory in a damp Turkish GP ahead of Red Bull duo Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez who completed the top three whilst Lewis Hamilton finished fifth.

Verstappen is now six points ahead of championship-rival Hamilton as the battle for this year’s World Driver’s Championship intensifies.

When the 58 lap Turkish GP began, when all drivers were fitted with the green side-walled intermediate rubber, the top three scrambled off the line in the same order as they lined-up, with pole-sitter Bottas comfortably leading Verstappen into the first corner.

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc made the best start of the three but remained third after getting close on the outside of Verstappen before dropping back as they reached the left-hander.

Despite the slippery conditions, the only opening lap incidents were AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly tapping Alpine’s Fernando Alonso as the Spaniard attempted to sweep around the outside of turn one, which spun him down to the rear of the pack – where he was involved in a tangle that lead Haas F1 Team’s Mick Schumacher to spin at turn four on the second tour – and Williams Racing’s Nicholas Latifi suffering a spin by himself at turn nine.

Bottas lead by 1.3 seconds at the end of the first lap and the gap did not grow much beyond that over the next stage of proceedings – despite Verstappen looking for wet patches to cool his intermediates and reported a dashboard error message he was spotting when shifting gears.

By the tenth tour, Bottas lead reached 2.4 seconds – having grown suddenly on the previous two laps – at which point Hamilton was up into seventh place after passing Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel at the final sequence of corners on the opening lap and slipping past AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda and the other Aston Martin entry of Lance Stroll in consecutive laps of eight and nine, after Tsunoda kept the world champion at bay in the early stages of the Grand Prix.

Hamilton then got by McLaren’s Lando Norris to move into sixth place at turn nine, as Bottas continued to increase his lead over Verstappen – the two Mercedes entries at this phase the only cars lapping in the 1:33’s and Leclerc dropping back from Verstappen by a few seconds.

But as proceedings reached the 20^th lap, with Hamilton up into fifth place after easily passing Gasly ahead of the turn 12 braking point at the end of the back straight on the 14^th tour, Verstappen picked up his pace and began to reel in Bottas as the focus became on how long the inters would hold on.

Bottas also picked up his speed as the leaders went into the low 1:33’s bracket, with the Finn initially holding his lead to over three seconds until he lost half a second sliding his F1 W12 EQ Performance racer out of the opening corner on lap 20.

But from there Verstappen could not close into the Mercedes driver, with all the leaders looking for wet patches to cool their intermediate compounds as they wore down – Hamilton in fifth place initially cutting into Perez’s gap ahead before the Mexican improved his pace and kept clear in fourth, but well behind Leclerc, who continued to keep the leaders in sight.

McLaren pitted Daniel Ricciardo on the 22^nd tour for a fresh set of inters from the rear of the pack, but the Australian could not go any faster and was slower than the leaders, who began considering if a one-stop strategy could be practicable as the midway point of proceedings approached.

Bottas began pulling away from Verstappen once more – his gap increasing to four seconds on the 30^th lap – whilst Hamilton, who at one point had to back out of lapping Haas F1 Team’s Nikita Mazepin when coming close to the Russian at the turn 11 kink in the middle of the back straight, finally reaching the rear of Perez’s Red Bull, the pairing almost 20 seconds off the lead.

They engaged in a thrilling fight at the end of the 34^th lap into the 35^th tour, Hamilton attacking to the outside of the Red Bull at turn 12 and remained alongside all the way into the last corner, Perez at one stage forced into cutting behind the pit-entry bollard by the Mercedes at the penultimate turn.

The fight continued into the opening corner, where Perez held onto the inside line and remained in fourth place, with the battle then succeeded by the leaders putting.

Red Bull brought Verstappen in for a fresh set of inters on the 36^th tour, with Bottas following suit a tour later and easily kept the lead, whilst Perez came in the same back and emerged behind Hamilton.

The world champion and Leclerc holding P1, remained out – Hamilton arguing against Mercedes call to pit him on lap 42.

Bottas over seven seconds in-front of Verstappen, who reported a steering wheel “left-hand down” problem as the last quarter of the Grand Prix approached, at first steadily closed in on Leclerc on his fresh intermediates.

He gained large amounts of time as the final laps drew near and reclaimed the lead with a major grip advantage on the wet line down the inside line into the opening corner on the 47^th lap, at the end of which Leclerc finally stopped.

From there, Bottas went on to claim the Turkish GP victory, his first in 2021 by 14.584 seconds – posting the fastest lap of a 1:30.432 on the last lap – whilst Perez took the final podium place after passing Leclerc on lap 51.

Ferrari was hoping that Leclerc, on fresh inters, would close back up on the leading duo, but the Monegasque-youngster hit the bad graining phase all the drivers were experiencing a few laps in on the green-branded rubber after pitting, which meant Perez could easily take the position with a run around the outside of turn 12.

The tour before Perez overtook Leclerc, Hamilton finally made his pit-stop, with Mercedes feeling it had to abort it’s no-stop strategy because of Gasly in sixth place – already on a second set of intermediates.

Hamilton at first got close to Leclerc on his fresh inters, but then dropped back rapidly as he hit the graining phase, to which he was angry with Mercedes’ decision to pit him in a series of messages over the team radio.

Hamilton was able to hold Gasly off at the line, with the latter serving a five-second penalty at his pit-stop for his opening lap incident with Alonso, who did also for his tangle with Schumacher.

Norris came home in seventh, closely behind Gasly, with Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz eighth after climbing fast up the field from the rear with a series of solid overtakes – the Spaniard also had to recover from a slow pit-stop.

In that recovery drive, Sainz passed Stroll, who ended the race in ninth, and Alpine’s Esteban Ocon, who was the sole driver to complete the entire Grand Prix on one set of tyres, completed the top ten.

Alfa Romeo Racing pairing Antonio Giovinazzi and Kimi Raikkonen finished in 11^th and 12^th respectively and ahead of McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo who was 13^th.

AlphaTauri’s Tsunoda was 14^th and in-front of Williams Racing’s George Russell who came 15^th and the aforementioned Alonso in 16^th.

The other Williams of Latifi ended the Grand Prix in 17^th and in-front of Aston Martin’s Vettel with the latter the only driver to attempt a stint on the slicks, putting on the mediums with 22 laps remaining, but he came back in after a single lap, where the four-time world champion was struggling massively and twice went off the track, to switch back to the inters.

The Haas duo of Schumacher and Mazepin brought up the rear.

2021 Turkish GP – The Top Three

2021 Turkish GP Winner – Valtteri Bottas, #77, Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team, F1 W12 EQ Performance:

“It’s been a while, but it feels good. From my side, one of the best races I’ve had – everything was under control. Everything went smooth for once for me. When’s there’s only one dry line – difficult one.”

2^nd Place – Max Verstappen, #33, Red Bull Racing-Honda, RB16B:

“It was not easy today; the track was greasy, and we had to manage the tyres the whole race. Valtteri had a bit more pace, but we are happy to finish second – it’s easy to get it wrong and drop back.”

3^rd Place – Sergio Perez, 11, Red Bull Racing-Honda, RB16B:

“It was quite an intense race, fighting with Lewis and Charles. The start was very good, manage the tyres well, it was tricky to know where you were as the tyres went off and came back.”

Formula 1 Rolex Turkish Grand Prix 2021 Race Results Classification (58 Laps)

https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2021/races/1078/turkey/race-result.html

Click here for the Formula 1 World Driver’s (Top 10) and Constructors Championship Standings

Round 17 of the 2021 FIA Formula One World Championship returns to the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas for the Formula 1 Aramco United States Grand Prix 2021 from Friday October 22-Sunday October 24.

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