Lewis Hamilton took his second win of 2021, but the race was one of those that Lewis truly earnt on merit. He maintained second place at the start but following a safety car resulting from Kimi Raikkonen spreading his front wing all over the track after contact with his team-mate Antonio Giovinazzi, and subsequently stopping on track, he squandered the restart and Max Verstappen managed to get past.
However a 7 time world champion cannot be kept down for long, as he first managed to get past Max, before chasing down his team-mate Valtteri Bottas, pulling off a hair raising pass round the outside of Turn 1 that would’ve had the team looking away from their screens for one moment.
Max Verstappen managed to get past Valtteri Bottas after the pitstops, and Red Bull attempted to use Sergio Perez as a roadblock to back the defending champion into Verstappen. But Lewis easily got through and from then on he was unstoppable. Both Max and Valtteri pitted to go for fastest lap, which went to Valtteri Bottas after Max Verstappen’s time got deleted due to track limits.
Sergio Perez had a rough start, first dropping behind Carlos Sainz. He managed to get past the Ferrari on the restart but then was passed by Lando Norris, who he eventually managed to repass, eventually finishing in fourth. Lando Norris finished in fifth, maintaining his solid start to the season ahead of Charles Leclerc, who drove a good race to sixth. The two Alpine cars of Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso got a good haul of points with seventh and eighth place.
Daniel Ricciardo managed to fight back from his abysmal qualifying, fighting his way through the field to finish in ninth place, whilst Pierre Gasly rounded out the points. Carlos Sainz had a disappointing race, clearly suffering from being on the wrong strategy, finishing outside the points, ahead of Antonio Giovinazzi and the two Aston Martins of Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll, who would’ve been disappointed not to score points.
Yuki Tsunoda finished in fifteenth in an AlphaTauri that lacked pace, ahead of a dismal race for George Russell, seemingly lacking race pace. Mick Schumacher finished seventeenth, passing Nicholas Latifi after a race long battle with the Canadian, whilst Nikita Mazepin rounded out the finishers, sparking anger from Sergio Perez after ignoring blue flags, landing him a 5 second time penalty. Kimi Raikkonen was the only driver who did not finish the race.
Lewis Hamilton extends his lead to 8 points in the drivers standings, whilst Lando Norris remains in third in the standings.
Here is the result of the Portuguese Grand Prix.
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