And Valtteri Bottas WINS the Turkish Grand Prix, making it his 10th win in his career and his first since Russia in 2020! Joining him on the podium is both Bulls, Verstappen in P2 and Perez in P3.
The rest of the top 10 are: P4: Leclerc, P5: Hamilton, P6: Gasly, P7: Norris, P8: Sainz, P9: Stroll and P10: Ocon. Fastest lap goes to VB as well.
This means that Max is now back in the lead for the Championship, having a 6 point gap between him and Lewis, neither driver has led the championship for two weekends in a row in 7 races… This is getting closer and closer as we get to the last few races!
Lap 1 in the wet wasn’t as chaotic as Hungary, but we did have Alonso spin. He started P5 and then went down to P16. Gasly got a 5 second penalty for causing the spin… Hamilton managed to gain two places in the first lap which put him up to P9, that was the start of the classy overtakes.
I’ve got to say and acknowledge, Yuki Tsunoda. It seemed like he put up a really good fight against the 7 time world champ, which not many other people did, he wasn’t afraid to defend from him.
I think Mercedes had a tough choice with the strategy today, you don’t have to have a mandatory pit when on intermediates and Hamilton was very happy to stay on them tyres. But Mercedes decided to pit him with only 7 laps to go when he was running in the podium places…
The fight between Perez and Hamilton was something else! My heart was in my mouth at one point just how close it was, but both drivers have massive respect for each other and left enough space so they didn’t touch. It shows a lot of people what Perez can do in the Red Bull when he is in that situation.
Carlos Sainz. Wow, what a drive, started P19, finished P8. I think some people will overlook this as he isn’t in the best car, which is true but to get the Ferrari in the points after being on the back row is amazing, fully deserves driver of the day!
I think Aston Martin might have had a bit of the moment sending Sebastian Vettel out on the Mediums… He lasted a lap on them and it quickly sent him down the order and then he pitted for Inters.
So now onto a closer look at the championship! We have Max now leading Lewis by 6 points, Bottas, Norris and Perez all stay in the same places. Sainz still in 6th position from Leclerc but there is only a gap of 0.5 between the pair…
In the constructors Mercedes are still in the lead and by 36 points! McLaren have managed to hold onto P3 and by only 8 points as Ferrari are now starting to close in on them.
So we now have a two week break till the next race, but we will be returning to the Circuit of The Americas after two years for round 17, in this thrilling championship battle!
Jordan's F1 Blog 