Lewis Hamilton overtook both Max Verstappen and Valtteri Bottas to claim an outstanding victory at the Portuguese Grand Prix, the 33-year-old extends his lead in the 2021 Formula 1 world championship.
The seven-time world champion recovered from a poor start as he fell down to third position behind both team-mate Bottas and Red Bull’s Verstappen. Hamilton overtook the duo into Turn 1 on separate occasions, as he scored his 97th-career victory.
This was Hamilton’s second win of the season following Verstappen’s response last time out at Imola. Verstappen finished second after passing Bottas at halfway through the race, the Mercedes driver was unable to convert his pole position as he completed the podium despite encouraging a late engine issue.
Sergio Perez finished fourth on an alternate strategy in the second Red Bull ahead of Lando Norris, who continued his outstanding form for McLaren as he finished fifth.
Charles Leclerc completed the top six as he finished four seconds behind Norris, the Monegasque driver beat Alpine duo Esteban Ocon and two-time world champion Fernando Alonso as he recovered from a disappointing qualifying session.
McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo turned in an impressive recovery drive as he finished ninth ahead of AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly. The Frenchman snatched the final points paying position after a late move on Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz.
Race Round-up
Bottas maintained his lead over Hamilton when the lights went out, the race was quickly slowed as an early Safety Car was deployed when Kimi Raikkonen went off after losing his front wing in a clash with his team-mate Antonio Giovinazzi on the pit-straight.
Upon the restart, Bottas caught Hamilton napping as Verstappen got a good run on the seven-time wold champion. An excellent overtake from the Dutchman relegated Hamilton down to third.
Hamilton soon responded when his tyres began to regain temperature, he passed the Red Bull driver on Lap 11 as he took back second place with team-mate Bottas ahead. Verstappen made a small mistake coming out of Turn 14 which gifted Hamilton the opportunity to retake the position.
The Red Bull driver looked to get back at the Briton at Turn 3 but Hamilton kept him at bay by running his rival out of road, Verstappen was forced to yield the position.
Hamilton pushed on and slowly started to gain on Bottas, after sitting behind the leader for several laps, the reigning world champion made a move on Lap 20 as he swept around the outside of the Finnish driver at Turn 1.
Verstappen was the first of the leading trio to dive into the pit-lane, a quick stop enabled the Red Bull man to get within distance of Bottas as he responded a lap later.
Despite emerging from the pit-lane ahead, Bottas struggled on cold tyres which allowed Verstappen to pass the 31-year-old into Turn 5 as he capitalised with his warmer Hard compound tyres.
At this point, Hamilton had a comfortable lead ahead of the chasing pack as he went on to secure an important win that sees him move eight points clear of his nearest rival Verstappen in the championship standings ahead of next weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix.
Verstappen attempted to gain one point on Hamilton as he went for fastest lap, after exceeding track limits at Turn 14, his lap time was deleted and subsequently the point was given to Bottas.
