#TurkishGP Race Report: @LewisHamilton clinches seventh world title with victory. #F1

Lewis Hamilton wrapped up his seventh Formula 1 World Driver’s Championship crown after a dominant victory in an action-packed Turkish GP ahead of Racing Point’s Sergio Perez, while Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas finished 14^th after suffering several spins.

 

 

Hamilton who started from sixth on the grid, charged through the pack in wet-and-wild conditions to secure the 2020 Driver’s Title and the Turkish GP victory, equalling the legendary Michael Schumacher with the most driver’s championships.

 

The majority of the Grand Prix was lead by Racing Point’s Lance Stroll, who lost out from making his second pit-stop for another set of intermediates, a strategy Scuderia Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc used to push to third in the closing stages, which he lost to team-mate Sebastian Vettel after making a final-lap lunge on Perez, whilst Mercedes opted to leave Hamilton on a one-stop strategy after he charged up the leading customer Mercedes-powered Racing Point RP20 entries.

 

When the 58 lap Turkish GP began, the entire field made slow, slippery starts, but it was the Red Bull Racing pairing that could not get the power down from off the line, which saw Max Verstappen and Alexander Albon quickly overhauled from second and fourth by the two Mercedes and Renault’s.

 

 

Esteban Ocon followed Perez into the Turkish Corkscrew (Turn One) in third position as Stroll lead from the front grid slot, but he was sent into a spin by Daniel Ricciardo, who turned out of the left-hand corner to avoid Hamilton, with the F1 W11 EQ Power+ racer suddenly appearing on his inside.

 

Ocon spun around and Bottas had nowhere to go, having a synchronised spin with the Renault as he avoided a collision – although the Finn later tangled with the Renault driver into a second spin, giving him a left-rear puncture, as he lost the rear of his Mercedes at the left-hand turn nine on the opening lap.

 

Stroll and Perez pulled clear, with Hamilton moving up to third from sixth, but slipped off at turn nine and was jumped by a quick-starting Vettel, who made his way up from 11^th on the grid, and the recovering Red Bull of Verstappen.

 

At the end of the first lap, Stroll had a 3.6 second gap over Racing Point team-mate Perez, which he extended to five seconds with a string of fastest laps over the next few tours before the Mexican started to slowly reel towards his team-mate.

 

After Leclerc found it was the right time to take on a fresh set of green side-walled intermediates taking his initial stop from 14^th place, with the leaders following suit two laps later, lead by Vettel and Hamilton from third and fifth respectively – by which time the latter had become the quickest driver on circuit.

 

When they pitted on the eighth lap, Verstappen was free from being stuck behind Vettel and insisted on remaining out on track on his full wet rubber until the 11^th lap, two tours later race-leader Stroll came in and easily kept the lead.

 

Perez pitted the lap before Verstappen, but had a slow right front tyre change, and when the Dutchman finally stopped – with Albon the last of the leading drivers to switch tyres – Verstappen just managed to jump in-front of Vettel, a touch behind Perez.

 

Stroll’s gap once the first round of pit-stops was up to 10.7 seconds, with the race stabilised by the deployment of the virtual safety car as Alfa Romeo Racing’s Antonio Giovinazzi – who crashed on his way to the grid ahead of the Grand Prix, along with Williams Racing’s George Russell – pulled off track to retire on the straight down the hill after the famous turn eight.

 

When the race went green two tours later, the Red Bull duo were able to light their tyres up best of the leading drivers, with Verstappen putting Perez under-pressure and Albon making short work of Vettel at turn seven on the 16^th lap after Hamilton suffered a lock-up and went off at turn 12 – the track’s hot-spot for overtaking – the lap the virtual safety car ended.

 

Verstappen had the opportunity to pass Perez when the Mexican slipped out of turn nine on the 18^th lap, after he began to make big gains in Stroll’s lead, but after the Red Bull driver looked to Perez’s inside at the turn 11 kink he ran out on the kerbs on the outside and lost the rear of his Honda-powered RB16 racer, spinning off at high-speed and dropped behind Albon, Vettel and Hamilton.

 

After flat-spotting his tyres from that scary moment, the Dutchman pitted for another set of intermediate rubber, falling to eighth place with Albon then charging in on Perez as Hamilton struggled to keep up with Vettel as the teams questioned whether it was time to change to slicks.

 

By the 24^th lap, Perez had cut team-mate Stroll’s lead to just over four seconds, with Albon following close behind the two Racing Point’s before dropping back over the next five tours as he struggled with the intermediates on a drying track.

 

The tread degrading away on the green-marked rubber appeared to favour Vettel and Hamilton, as they started to reel in the leaders as the Grand Prix reached the mid-way point, when Leclerc again sparked another flurry of stops as he pitted for more intermediates from ninth place.

 

His stop encouraged Vettel to pit as well, with Albon then giving Hamilton third place after suffering a spin at turn four on the 34^th tour, after which he immediately stopped.

 

At the front, Perez was rapidly closing up to Stroll, getting within one-second – with DRS being activated on the 30^th lap – as Racing Point considered whether to put on a fresh set of intermediates or leave its drivers on track.

 

But with Hamilton suddenly appearing in the two RP20’s midst and the Ferrari’s flying on their new set of compounds, Stroll came in on lap 36, emerging fourth, behind Verstappen – a major factor again thanks to his second stop.

 

Hamilton told Mercedes to leave him out and by the 37^th tour, he was within DRS range of the leading Perez, then made the simple overtake on the long rundown to turn 12 to grab first place, which he had in the opening laps been almost a pit-stop behind.

 

The Briton then rapidly moved clear of Perez, who also did not pit for another set of intermediates, increasing his lead of nearly 20 seconds over the next ten tours.

 

In the field behind, Vettel, now being followed by his fast-charging team-mate Leclerc, attacked a struggling RP20 of Stroll into turn 12 on the 39^th lap, and when the former race leader fought back at the left-hand corner, the Canadian went deep and was overtaken by both Ferrari’s – then relegated at the same spot by Albon and McLaren’s Carlos Sainz on the next two laps.

 

Leclerc was making moves once again on lap 40, passing Vettel with DRS assistance on the run-down to turn 12 and quickly built a gap over his team-mate over the next few laps, the point where Sainz overtook Albon for fifth and the gaps between the leaders spread out massively.

 

Despite the threat of heavy rain returning in the closing stages, Hamilton, after Mercedes considered a safety stop for the Briton given his big lead over Perez, came home to a dominant Turkish GP victory by 31.633 seconds.

 

Leclerc had slid off the track at turn four as the Grand Prix entered its final stages, but had enough of a gap over team-mate Vettel to stay third, where he was on course to finish before the gap to Perez closed in fast over the last tours.

 

Perez ran deep into turn nine on the final lap and gave Leclerc the opportunity to attack the Racing Point into turn 12, but the SF1000 went too deep, which allowed Perez to remain in second and then suddenly allowed Vettel to snatch third place.

 

Leclerc thus settled for fourth ahead of McLaren’s Sainz, with Verstappen recovering to take sixth place ahead of team-mate Albon despite suffering another spin as they lapped the spun Alfa Romeo of Kimi Raikkonen off the circuit at turn four.

 

McLaren’s Lando Norris relegated Stroll to ninth when the former race leader slipped off-track at the first corner late on, with Renault’s Ricciardo, who also took a spin whilst fighting Norris a few tours before, completing the top ten.

 

Bottas wound up 14^th and a lap down behind his race winning team-mate, spinning a further three times – five in total – as the Finn struggled in a race where he needed to beat Hamilton by eight points to keep the title-battler alive.

 

Bottas pitted take on a new set of intermediates in the closing stages after his team-mate put the Finn a lap down, but his pace could not match Hamilton’s until the final tour.

 

Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen came in to retire late on, having re-joined the race after being released from his second pit-stop with a loose wheel – which is currently being investigated.

 

The other VF-20 Haas entry of Romain Grosjean and Williams Racing’s Nicholas Latifi also retired in the pits a few laps after they tangled and spun off.

 

Verstappen is also currently facing a post-race investigation by the stewards for possibly crossing the pit-exit line after his second stop.

---

Turkish GP – The Top Three

 

 

Turkish GP Winner – Lewis Hamilton, #44, Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport, F1 W11 EQ Power+: “I’m lost for words. Naturally, I have to start with saying a huge thank you to all the guys here and back at the factory, for giving me this opportunity. I’m so proud of them.”

 

2^nd Place – Sergio Perez, #11, BWT Racing Point F1 Team, RP20: “I told my team on the radio, one more lap on those tyres and I think they would have exploded! But it also made my race. Lewis was just too strong. A chaotic race but a strong result for us.”

 

3^rd Place – Sebastian Vettel, #5, Scuderia Ferrari, SF1000: “Quite intense, quite long but really fun. A bit of a surprise to snatch the podium in the end but a really enjoyable race in tricky conditions”

---

Formula 1 DHL Turkish GP 2020 Race Results Classification (58 Laps)

POS	NO	DRIVER	CAR	LAPS	TIME/RETIRED	PTS
1	44	Lewis Hamilton	MERCEDES	58	1:42:19.313	0
2	11	Sergio Perez	RACING POINT BWT MERCEDES	58	+31.633s	0
3	5	Sebastian Vettel	FERRARI	58	+31.960s	0
4	16	Charles Leclerc	FERRARI	58	+33.858s	0
5	55	Carlos Sainz	MCLAREN RENAULT	58	+34.363s	0
6	33	Max Verstappen	RED BULL RACING HONDA	58	+44.873s	0
7	23	Alexander Albon	RED BULL RACING HONDA	58	+46.484s	0
8	4	Lando Norris	MCLAREN RENAULT	58	+61.259s	0
9	18	Lance Stroll	RACING POINT BWT MERCEDES	58	+72.353s	0
10	3	Daniel Ricciardo	RENAULT	58	+95.460s	0
11	31	Esteban Ocon	RENAULT	57	+1 lap	0
12	26	Daniil Kvyat	ALPHATAURI HONDA	57	+1 lap	0
13	10	Pierre Gasly	ALPHATAURI HONDA	57	+1 lap	0
14	77	Valtteri Bottas	MERCEDES	57	+1 lap	0
15	7	Kimi Räikkönen	ALFA ROMEO RACING FERRARI	57	+1 lap	0
16	63	George Russell	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	57	+1 lap	0
17	20	Kevin Magnussen	HAAS FERRARI	55	DNF	0
NC	8	Romain Grosjean	HAAS FERRARI	49	DNF	0
NC	6	Nicholas Latifi	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	39	DNF	0
NC	99	Antonio Giovinazzi	ALFA ROMEO RACING FERRARI	11	DNF	0

* Provisional results. Note – Norris scored an additional point for setting the fastest lap of the race.

https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2020/races/1058/turkey/race-result.html

 

Click here for the 2020 Formula 1 World Driver’s (Top 10) and Constructors Championship Standings.

 

Round 15 of the 2020 FIA Formula One World Championship returns to the Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir, Bahrain for the Formula 1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix from Friday November 27-Sunday November 29.

---

#TurkishGP Qualifying: @Lance_Stroll claims shock maiden pole in wet and wild session. #F1

 

#TurkishGP FP2: @Max33Verstappen tops time-sheets ahead of @CharlesLeclerc. #F1

 

#TurkishGP FP1: @Max33Verstappen leads @RedBullRacing 1-2. #F1

 

#Formula1 @DHL Turkish Grand Prix 2020 Preview. #F1 #TurkishGP