@LewisHamilton claims 97th-career victory at the #PortugueseGP. #F1

Lewis Hamilton cruised to his 97^th-career victory at the Portuguese GP ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas, with the World Champion overtaking both in the early stages before dominating to the finish.

Such as it was the Briton’s solid drive approaching the chequered flag, Verstappen and Bottas both opted for another stop to fight for the fastest lap bonus point, which increased Hamilton’s lead at the line.

When the 66 lap Portuguese GP began, pole-sitter Bottas got a great start off the line and lead through the first two corners. Hamilton and Verstappen were just behind, with the latter having a look at passing the Mercedes before pulling out.

Behind the leaders, Red Bull Racing’s Sergio Perez was passed by the fast-starting Ferrari of Carlos Sainz for fourth place on the run-down to the opening corner, with Alpine F1 Team’s Esteban Ocon and McLaren’s Lando Norris fighting over sixth place further around the first lap – the MCL35M wrestling by on the outside run into turn 11.

On the second lap, Bottas’ lead was ay 0.8 seconds until the safety car was deployed after Alfa Romeo Racing’s Kimi Raikkonen collided with team-mate Antonio Giovinazzi on the main straight after being caught up in the slipstream and damaged his front wing in the process and got stuck underneath his C41, sending debris over the track, forcing the Finn to retire as he skated off into the gravel trap at turn one.

When the race restarted on lap seven after the debris was cleared – with the field being brought through the pit lane twice – Bottas lead the field away and behind the leading Mercedes, Verstappen made his way passed Hamilton for second place with a thrilling move around the outside on the rundown into the first corner.

For the next few laps, it looked as though Hamilton was struggling to hang onto the top two, but Verstappen sliding exiting the penultimate corner on the tenth tour gave the Briton a chance to strike as the Red Bull lost DRS assistance to Bottas.

Hamilton attacked at the first moment, using DRS to pull into the inside line at the opening turn, securing the move before Verstappen fought back on the outside of the tightening turn three right, where the Mercedes driver ran the Dutchman out of road on the outside and chased after his leading team-mate.

For the rest of the Grand Prix’s opening third, Bottas and Hamilton slightly pulled clear of Verstappen, but the Red Bull driver remained in play as the top three kept all their C2 yellow-marked mediums in shape.

After a cautious period with Bottas keeping firm in-front as the leaders lapped in the mid-to-high 1:22’s, Hamilton gained significantly running onto the main-straight at the end of the 19^th tour, and with DRS at the beginning of the next, he pushed for the lead.

Bottas held the inside line, but Hamilton swept passed the Finn around the outside to capture the lead for the first time, quickly moving out of DRS range ahead of his Mercedes team-mate.

As the Grand Prix headed towards half race distance, Hamilton increased his lead to above three seconds, with Verstappen keeping within DRS range of Bottas, but the Red Bull driver was unable to get close enough to attempt an overtake for tour after tour.

Just as Verstappen fell out of DRS threat, Red Bull called him to stop for a set of C1 white side-walled harder tyres at the end of the 35^th lap – with the Dutchman locking his front tyres approaching the 80-kilometre speed limit line.

Mercedes reacted and brought Bottas in a lap later, where the Finn’s stop took a second longer than Verstappen’s – 3.3 seconds vs 2.3 seconds – meaning the Red Bull was able to be close enough through the opening corners as Bottas emerged.

The Mercedes driver lost momentum with colder rubber exiting turn three, giving Verstappen an opportunity to pounce with warmer tyres, and he attacked Bottas out of turn four and claimed second place on the inside at the hairpin.

Up the front, Hamilton came in for his stop at the end of lap 37, also for a set of hards – a used set compared to Verstappen’s fresher set.

Once the sequence of pit-stops had passed, Hamilton’s gap was at 3.2 seconds over Verstappen, who initially began to eat into the Briton’s lead before dropping back again over the next few tours as Hamilton posted a series of fastest laps.

Hamilton’s gap was never under-threat from then onwards, although the Briton needed to make one more overtake for the lead – a simple DRS pass on pit straight to get by Perez, who found his way in the lead by completing a very long opening stint, as the other Honda-powered Red Bull RB16B stopped at the end of lap 51 and put on softer rubber.

Hamilton’s Portuguese GP victory margin was 29.148 seconds at the chequered flag, with Verstappen initially keeping Bottas behind over the first laps of the second stint, much as the other Mercedes driver done in reverse at the end of the Grand Prix’s first half.

The gap between the duo then grew when Bottas spent two tours heading towards the last ten laps losing two seconds each time to the Dutchman due to an exhaust temperature sensor robbing the Finn of top speed.

As Bottas had a comfortable advantage over Perez, who had taken the fastest lap on his softer rubber, Mercedes brought it’s second F1 W12 in with three laps remaining to try and clinch the bonus point.

Bottas did achieve that, setting a 1:19.865, only due to Verstappen’s effort being invalidated for running too wide exiting the second to last corner on the final tour.

Behind the top three finishers was Perez, who had run behind Norris after the race restart after the duo demoted Sainz back.

The Mexican then brought his Red Bull RB16B’s pace to his advantage to retake fourth position and began his long stint to extend the life of the mediums he began with.

With Perez gone in-front, Norris saw off the Scuderia’s attempts of an undercut at the pit-stop window – where he and Sainz swapped softs for mediums – and the McLaren driver then kept his softer rubber in much better condition than his former team-mate.

Sainz fell to 11^th at the end, with his rivals behind him putting on a set of hards at their pit-stops and enjoying much quicker pace across the rest of the Grand Prix.

Norris came home in fifth place, ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, who was the first driver to start Sainz’s drop shortly after the race’s halfway point.

Ocon finished seventh, ahead of Alpine F1 team-mate Fernando Alonso, who made great progress the longer the Grand Prix went on, with the Spaniard enjoying his time on the harder tyres to the end.

The other McLaren of Daniel Ricciardo drover brilliantly from 16^th on the grid in the early proceedings, making up several positions, then running a long stint meaning he was on the charge later on, until being passed by Alonso when the Alpine was showing solid pace.

Scuderia AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly completed the top ten and in-front of the aforementioned Sainz.

Alfa Romeo Racing’s Giovinazzi was 12^th and ahead of Aston Martin pairing Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll who were 13^th and 14^th respectively, with AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda 15^th.

Williams Racing’s George Russell crossed the line in 16^th and in-front of Haas F1 Team duo Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin who finished 17^th and at the rear respectively, with team-mate Nicholas Latifi splitting the Haas pairing in 18^th.

All three drivers behind Russell ended the Grand Prix two laps down from the lead.

2021 Portuguese GP – The Top Three

2021 Portuguese GP Winner – Lewis Hamilton, #44, Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team, F1 W12 EQ Performance:

“Mentally tough race, keeping it all together, it was very windy out there so yeah. Lost out at the restart, which was not good, I was not happy. With Valtteri I had to make the move early on before the tyres were destroyed. Debrief, a lot to download from today, today wasn’t all perfect. I need to look at those areas.”

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

“I had a good restart and put the pressure on Valtteri but in the end we lacked a little bit of pace.”

3^rd Place – Valtteri Bottas, #77, Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team, F1 W12 EQ Performance:

“In the first stint, I just didn’t have the pace. The second stint was good, but I had an issue with a sensor so I couldn’t get Max. Overall we had a strong package today.”

Formula 1 Heineken Grande Premio De Portugal 2021 Race Results Classification (66 Laps)

https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2021/races/1066/portugal/race-result.html

You can see the full Formula 1 Driver’s and Constructors Championship standings at the link: 2021 F1 World Championship Standings

Round four of the 2021 FIA Formula One World Championship heads straight to the Circuit De Barcelona-Catalunya next weekend for the Formula 1 Aramco Gran Premio De Espana 2021 from Friday May 7-9.