Bottas excels in dominant win at wet Turkish GP; Verstappen P2, Perez P3 on good day for Red Bull; disgruntled Hamilton settles for P5 after questionable late pit stop

Mercedes’ number two driver Valtteri Bottas, who has endured such a difficult season that the team decided not to bring him back for next year, showed his quality by taking a dominant victory at the Turkish Grand Prix on Sunday. With the conditions at the Intercity Istanbul Park circuit very challenging throughout the race due to consistently drizzly and humid conditions that ruled slick tires out entirely, Bottas managed his Intermediate wet weather Pirelli tires masterfully, converting the pole position he inherited due to teammate Lewis Hamilton’s 10 grid-spot engine change penalty into a dominant win ahead of the two pursuing Red Bulls of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez. While Bottas bested P2 Verstappen by over 14.5-seconds and also nabbed the bonus point for the day’s fastest lap, it actually turned into a fine day for the Dutchman and team Red Bull as a whole. Not only did he get his second second place in-a-row but wingman Perez was somewhat gifted his P3 after a controversial late call by the Mercedes braintrust to pit Hamilton for a fresh Inters on Lap 51 of this 58 lap contest. Hamilton, who started down in P11 on the grid after the penalty but had fought his way all the way up to P3 by that point with a slew of determined passes, had been lobbying to stay out and run to the end on his original set of Inters. But the team instead he box and when he emerged from the pits and found himself behind Perez and also Leclerc once again the English seven-time champion was vociferously displeased with the strategy call and repeatedly questioned the wisdom of the move.

Presumably, the Silver Arrows brain trust were looking to cover a late cloudburst that would have rendered Hamilton’s nearly bald original Inters useless in standing water. But the end realist was Hamilton having to fight through the predictable graining period of the treaded Pirellis without enough laps remaining for them to return to their best performance. He could never threaten the P4 Ferrari of Charles Leclerc in front of him to advance his position as the laps ran outand had to settle for holding off Pierre Gasly’s rapidly closing AlphaTauri and coming home P5. While it was decent damage limitation on a day when he started outside the points, Hamilton will no doubt be grilling the team on their strategy call and the fact that it had net result of Lewis ceding the championship lead back to Verstappen by six points with six races left in the season.  So while it was a good day in the abstract for Mercedes, who finally got a strong showing from Bottas with his win and a decent points haul from Hamilton after chosing to take the hit and change his power unit, it somehow still felt a bit less than fulfilling due to Hamilton’s bitter disappointment with the team’s tire tactics. On the other hand, Red Bull were well pleased with their double podium results on the day when it was clear that they didn’t have the race pace to challenge Mercedes for the win. With the rounds dwindling to a mere half dozen, it will be all to play for at the next race in the USA at COTA in two week’s time.

Pics courtesy GRandPrix247.com

Not only did Leclerc have an excellent race by securing that valuable P4 for Ferrari but the Scuderia got the bonus of a spectacular recovery effort by Carlos Sainz, who started from way back in P19 due to his own engine change penalty but made a passel of passes to fight all the way back up to a P8 finish. It was easily one of the Spaniard’s best efforts on the year, if not career, and shows that if the engineers at Maranello can get next year’s chassis and engine up to snuff they have a driver combo that can potentially compete with any other duo on the grid. Gasly also did well by AlphaTauri to take that P6 just behind Hamilton, though the Frenchman and his team will be wondering what might have been if he hadn’t been handed a rather harsh 5-second penalty for contact with Fernando Alonso on the opening lap that looked pretty much like a standard racing incident. Lando Norris, who had to recover psychologically from his heartbreaking experience in Sochi two weeks ago, was the only McLaren in the points after finishing P7 at a circuit that simply did not seem to suit their papaya-colored cars due to an abundance of long, medium speed corners. With Ferrari hot on their heels for third in the all important Contructors title, McLaren will be hoping for a better fit when they unload in Austin. Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll, who seems to excel in these sorts of mixed weather conditions, did well again to finish in P9, while Alpine’s Esteban Ocon, who ran the entire race on one set of Inters, held on to P10 for the final points paying position.

Top 10 finishers of the Turkish GP:

Complete race results available via Formula1.com.

The next race is in two week’s time — the return of the United States Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas after a year’s hiatus due to COVID. Hamilton will be positively champing at the bit to get back on track and put the disappointment of today’s events behind him. Verstappen will be looking to keep and expand his lead in the points with his first F1 title so close he can almost taste it. Hope to see you then to find out how it all shakes out!