Tag Archives: Autódromo Internacional do Algarve

2021 F1 Grand Prix of Portugal — Results & aftermath

Hamilton vanquishes nearest rivals for easy win in Portugal; Vertsappen P2, Bottas struggles to P3

Sunday’s Portuguese Grand Prix, which seemed to promise so much after a very tight qualifying between the front running Mercedes and Red Bull teams, instead turned into something of a wet firecracker. In an ominous sign for the rest of the field, Mercedes ace Lewis Hamilton returned to dominating form and handily trounced the rest of the field, including his pole-sitting teammate Valtteri Bottas and closest rival in terms of sheer talent, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen. Despite starting from P2 and actually being passed for that position by the Dutchman when he bobbled a post-Safety Car restart on Lap 7, the superlative English seven time champion rebounded quickly, first retaking that second place from Verstappen on Lap 11 and then dusting off Bottas on Lap 20 to grab the lead of the race. While Red Bull’s other driver Sergio Perez used an exceptionally long stint on his opening set of Medium Pirellis to inherit the race lead for a large chunk after the Mercedes man made his first pit stop on Lap 38, Hamilton bided his time until the delta between his fresher Hards and Perez’s old Mediums inexorably converged. By Lap 51 the Mexican was easy meat for the Silver Arrow and Ham the man took back his rightful lead. With Hamilton and his W12 back in perfect harmony, Lewis took the checkered of this 66-lap contest just under half a minute ahead of P2 Verstappen and 33.5 seconds in front of the beleaguered Bottas. It could be that the Red Bulls were just uniquely unsuited to the track here in Portugal and they definitely struggled with the windy conditions on their aero-sensitive RB16B chassis. But Mercedes also seemed to grab a decisive pace advantage in a straight line, with the Honda-powered Red Bulls looking very much down on power by comparison. The next race in Spain will be highly instructive to discover whether Mercedes have come to grips with this year’s rule changes and are on their way to another year of domination or if Red Bull can continue improving their mounts to keep the Silver Arrows honest.

Pics courtesy GrandPrix247.com

While Verstappen settled for P2 and the cold comfort of beating Bottas to the line, he was unable to set the fastest lap and earn the bonus point after a late switch to Soft Pirellis when his quickest time was deleted due to exceeding track limits in the attempt. That meant that Bottas, who pulled the same trick with a late switch to Softs, snatched that extra point with the race’s fastest lap. However, that honor will mainly benefit his teammate’s championship pursuit and not the Finn’s own, which now looks as improbable as at any time in his tenure with the big Mercedes factory team. Perez finished where he started, in P4, despite his heroic effort in stretching his first set of tires all the way to Lap 52. Truly, the veteran Mexican is a master of keeping life in his rubber.

Best of the rest was the rapidly improving Lando Norris of McLaren, who scored a very handy P5 finish after battling with a lot of other midfield runners throughout the race. His teammate Daniel Ricciardo had a good recovery drive for the team after qualifying a lowly sixteenth on the grid. The gritty Aussie fought his way all the way back into the points and came home P9 with a determined and savvy effort. Charles Leclerc was the lone Ferrari to earn points on the day, finishing P6 and getting the better of the Scuderia’s tire strategy when the team gambled on splitting it by putting Carlos Sainz onto Mediums and Leclerc on Hard tires after their first stops. The Hards proved to be the way to go for the long haul and Sainz struggled badly late in the race and finished down in P11. The two Alpines of Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso were genuinely quick, especially as the laps wound down and the cars got lighter by nursing off their fuel, with Ocon coming home P7 and Alonso in P8. The feat was particularly impressive by the Spanish two-time champion, who battled up from a P13 start in what was his best drive since coming back to F1 after a three year hiatus in WEC. AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly took the last point with a tenth place finish.

Top 10 finishers of the Portuguese GP:

POS NO DRIVER CAR LAPS TIME/RETIRED PTS
1 44 Lewis Hamilton MERCEDES 66 1:34:31.421 25
2 33 Max Verstappen RED BULL RACING HONDA 66 +29.148s 18
3 77 Valtteri Bottas MERCEDES 66 +33.530s 16
4 11 Sergio Perez RED BULL RACING HONDA 66 +39.735s 12
5 4 Lando Norris MCLAREN MERCEDES 66 +51.369s 10
6 16 Charles Leclerc FERRARI 66 +55.781s 8
7 31 Esteban Ocon ALPINE RENAULT 66 +63.749s 6
8 14 Fernando Alonso ALPINE RENAULT 66 +64.808s 4
9 3 Daniel Ricciardo MCLAREN MERCEDES 66 +75.369s 2
10 10 Pierre Gasly ALPHATAURI HONDA 66 +76.463s 1

Complete race results available via Formula1.com.

The next race is in but a weeks’ time, the nearby Spanish Grand Prix at the very familiar Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, which all the teams use for preseason testing. Hopefully for the sake of a tight championship contest Red Bull were just ill-suited to Portimao this weekend and will be back to their harassing ways, bringing the fight for victory to Hamilton and Mercedes. Look forward to seeing you then to find out how it all shakes out!

2020 F1 Grand Prix of Portugal — Results & aftermath

HAMMER TIME — Lewis Hamilton becomes winningest Formula 1 driver with dominant 92nd victory at Portuguese GP; Bottas a distant P2, Verstappen P3

Mercedes ace Lewis Hamilton rewrote the Formula 1 record books on Sunday by breaking a tie with the great Michael Schumahcer and becoming the all-time leader in victories with 92 after a dominant win in the Portuguese Grand Prix at Autódromo Internacional do Algarve in Portimao, Portugal. Racing away from pole, the English six-time World Champion and current points leader actually ceded his lead during a chaotic Lap 1 multi-car shuffle that saw McLaren’s Carlos Sainz surge forward from P7 on the grid to lead the race. Appearing to struggle for grip on cool Medium Pierrelli tires, his teammate and Mercedes Number 2, Valtteri Bottas, also passed Hamilton, relegating him to P3 in the order. But Sainz’s lead would prove to be short-lived. The Spaniard who started on the Soft tires, saw rapid performance degradation while the Medium-shod Mercs rapidly came into their own. Bottas passed Sainz on Lap 6 and Hamilton followed suit the following lap, setting up the usual internecine battle between the Silver Arrows. By Lap 19 Hamilton had closed the gap to Bottas and was harassing the Finn from directly behind his gearbox. On Lap 20, Hamilton made a decisive pass for a lead that he would never relinquish for the rest of the race.

Pics courtesy GrandPirx247.com

Clearly excelling on a long tire stint compared to his rivals, Hamilton ran all the way to Lap 41 on his first set of Mediums and then came in for a new set of Hards to finish off the 66-lap contest, having built enough of a gap over Bottas to still come out ahead, especially since Bottas was called in directly after him. While Bottas playfully pleaded to go to an alternate strategy and take a gamble on the least-favored Soft tires, that option was nixed by the Mercedes brain trust and Bottas had to hold station on matching Hards behind his superlative teammate for the remainder of the race. With the bit between his teeth and a historic prize to be grasped, Hamilton carved through backmarkers, lapping all but the top four finishers to cruise home to his record-setting win number 92. In the end, Lewis crossed the line over 25.5 seconds ahead of his P2 teammate. With a maximum points haul of 26 after also setting the fastest lap, Hamilton now leads Bottas, who races as number 77, by 77 points in the Championship with only four rounds remaining in the bizarre but entertaining 2020 season. So it’s nearly a lock that Hamilton will also tie Schumacher’s once unfathomable title record of seven Drivers’ Championships by the end and almost guaranteed that Hamilton returns in 2021 to break that mark with this era’s most dominant car before the new, cost saving and more spec-oriented formula kicks in 2022.

But for now, it is time to savor this individual accomplishment in what is already Hall of Fame career with first McLaren and now Mercedes and to pay respect to Lewis Hamilton for breaking a record that was previously thought to be untouchable. Simply put, Ham the Man is in the conversation for greatest all-time F1 pilot regardless of the era and no matter how easy he makes it look the 35-year-old Englishman is also making history every time he hits the track. With several more years of racing at the top level likely to come, Hamilton should continue to rewrite the record book in a way that will truly never be matched again.

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2020 F1 Grand Prix of Portugal — Qualifying results

Hamilton snatches pole from Bottas for inaugural Portimao race, aims to break Schumacher’s victory record tomorrow; Verstappen third fastest

In this most unusual COVID-effected year, which has forced Formula 1 to confine itself to Europe for the bulk of an improvised season, the drivers faced another challenge when they made the first-ever Grand Prix qualifying attempts at Autódromo Internacional do Algarve, aka Portimao, on Saturday. After a long delay precipitated by the need to secure several loose and potentially dangerous drainage grates around the rolling 4.653 kilometer circuit, the unfamiliar and very green track still produced a familiar result when Mercedes ace Lewis Hamilton bested his teammate Valtteri Bottas in the dying moments of Q3, grabbing pole position for Sunday’s Portuguese Grand Prix by a tenth and earning the best possible starting spot to try to win the race and break a tie with the great Michael Schumacher for most-ever wins by a Formula 1 driver. Hamilton will be gunning for an astounding win number 92 tomorrow and it’d be a brave person who would bet against him getting it. Bottas must have been crestfallen to once again play second fiddle to his championship points-leading teammate, having led every practice and qualifying session prior to that final, most important one. The Mercedes braintrust put both their men on the Medium Pirellis for Q3, a somewhat risky and counterintuitive move, especially with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen looking quick enough to threaten the Sliver Arrows’ hegemony while running the ostensibly faster Soft tires. But the gamble paid off and the Mediums wound up being the better performing tire during crunch time, at least if one was driving the peerless Mercedes W11. Interestingly, Hamilton set the fastest overall lap for pole after running two hot laps on his tires on this recently repaved, low abrasion surface, while Bottas ran only the traditional single hot lap and had to once again settle for P2. But the unlucky Finn was still quick enough by around two-tenths to hold off Verstappen, even with the Red Bull man on the softer rubber. The talented Dutchman will start behind the Mercs in the second row in P3 and will be keen to overtake one or both of the top two at the start, perhaps taking advantage of a contretemps between Mercedes teammates heading into Turn 1. Continue reading →