Hamilton beats Verstappen and Bottas for Portuguese GP victory

Lewis Hamilton achieved his second win of the season by defeating Max Verstappen and team-mate Valtteri Bottas in Portimao and increasing his lead in the drivers’ standings while Lando Norris retained third place in the drivers’ standings by finishing fifth for McLaren.

Bottas started well and kept the lead ahead of Hamilton and Verstappen, and Perez lost his position to Sainz on soft tyres while Norris overtook Ocon later in the first lap.

Ricciardo also started well from 16th place and moved up three positions, but at the end of the first lap Raikkonen hit the back left wheel of teammate Giovinazzi with the right part of the front wing, broke his front wing and continued straight to the barrier in the first corner.

Due to a lot of debris on the starting finish line the race control sent a safety car to the track and the drivers were instructed to go through the pitlane until the track was cleared and the safety car retreated at the end of the sixth lap.

Verstappen attacked Hamilton on the restart from outside the first corner, and Norris overtook both Sainz and Perez and reached fourth place while Perez overtook Sainz as Leclerc overtook Ocon.

Hamilton took advantage of Verstappen’s mistake in the penultimate turn in lap 10 and overtook him from the inside of the first turn at the start of lap 11 and defended himself from a counterattack from the outside of the third corner.

Ricciardo continued to break through the standings and overtook Vettel in the 18th lap at the starting finish line and broke into the points-winning position in tenth place, with Hamilton took the lead by overtaking Bottas from outside the first corner in the 20th lap.

Sainz was the first to enter the pits from the leading drivers and replaced the soft tyres with a medium in lap 22, and McLaren covered Ferrari’s move in the next lap and invited Norris into the pits who managed to get back in front of Sainz.

Gasly also replaced soft tyres with a new medium in lap 25 and returned to 12th place, while Leclerc entered the pits from fifth place and replaced medium with hard. At that moment, behind two Mercedes and two Red Bulls there was Ricciardo in McLaren ahead of Alonso in Alpine who, like the top four, started on medium tyres.

Verstappen was the first to enter the pits of the top four drivers in lap 36 and replaced the medium with hard, and Mercedes responded with Bottas who also took the hard tyres and came back in front of him.

But Verstappen took advantage of Bottas’ mistake at the exit of the third turn and overtook him on the inside of the fourth turn as Hamilton made his stop in the next lap and came back ahead of Verstappen and Bottas on hard tyres.

Ricciardo did his tyre change in lap 42 and replaced the medium with hard and came back behind Gasly, and Ocon overtook Sainz on the outside of the first corner in the duel for seventh place in lap 45.

Ricciardo overtook Gasly in the 49th lap in a fight for ninth place after a better exit from the fifth corner, and Hamilton overtook Perez in the 51st lap who was not yet in the pits and took the lead. Red Bull called Perez in the next lap and put soft tyres with which he later drove the fastest lap of the race.

Alonso overtook Sainz on the outside of the first turn in the 59th lap on 19 laps with fresher tyres and took eighth place after starting from 13th place while Gasly overtook Sainz in the last lap for the last point in today’s race.

Bottas and Verstappen entered the pits for new tyres to try to win a point for the fastest lap that Bottas eventually took because Verstappen’s fastest lap 1:19.849 was deleted for disregarding the track limits in the 14th corner.

Hamilton celebrated with a 29-second lead over Verstappen and achieved his second win of the season and 97th in his career, with Bottas completing the podium for Mercedes ahead of Perez in the second Red Bull.

Norris had a great race for McLaren in fifth place and retained third place in the drivers’ standings with Leclerc finishing sixth for Ferrari ahead of two Alpine drivers Ocon and Alonso.

Ricciardo had a very good race which he finished in ninth place after starting from 16th place and Gasly overtook Sainz in the last lap and won a point for AlphaTauri.

The next race will take place in a week in Spain.

PORTUGUESE GP RESULTS

Fastest lap: Valtteri Bottas – 1:19.865 (lap 65)

DRIVERS’ CHAMPIONSHIP AFTER 3/23 RACES

CONSTRUCTORS’ CHAMPIONSHIP