Portugal: post-race analysis 2021

I’ve had some unlucky breaks with bets this year. Hard to say if this was bad luck or a colossal misjudgement, but I’m inclined towards the latter. Russell looked great in qualifying and the pace utterly evaporated in the race. Bit of a head scratcher, to be honest. I prefer a loss like that to a decent judgement subject to misfortune, though.

Off the line it was formation flying for the top three, with Sainz passing Perez. Norris and Ocon had a prolonged duel with the Briton moving up at the expense of the Frenchman. At the end of the lap Raikkonen, perhaps surprised by the slipstream pace on his team mate, knocked off his front wing and necessitated a safety car.

He ended up being the only DNF of the race (as Stroll was last year).

After the restart Verstappen caught Hamilton napping and passed him for 2^nd, with Perez and Norris both passing Sainz. Leclerc and Ocon had a tussle, and Leclerc ended up ahead.

A small error cost Verstappen time, put him out of DRS to Bottas but within Hamilton’s grasp and the Briton leapt on it to pass his title rival, passing Hamilton several laps later to take a lead that never looked under threat.

Sainz was the first chap to pit swapping soft for medium tyres, which proved to be quite a Ferrari strategy. He spent the latter third of the race getting passed by chaps on fresher or harder tyres and ended up out of the points.

Verstappen pitted for hard tyres. Bottas emerged from his stop just ahead but the cold tyres enabled Verstappen to pass the Finn. And thus was the top three set.

There was more action down the order with Ricciardo and Alonso making up many places, particularly the Spaniard. One side note, about 59 laps in of 66, Schumacher and Mazepin were penultimate and last, but the German was nearly a full minute ahead of his team mate.

Hamilton extends his title lead with this win, Verstappen getting 2^nd and Bottas putting in a reasonable but not fantastic performance for 3^rd. Perez’s bad start made things a little bit of a damage limitation exercise but he claimed 4^th.

Norris continues his excellent start to 2021 with 5^th, and his team mate enjoyed Sunday a lot more than Saturday, with Ricciardo rising from 16^th to 9^th. Leclerc got 6^th whereas Sainz was 11^th, pretty much because the Monegasque had the hard tyre and Ferrari stuck Sainz on mediums for about 40 laps, which turned out not to be terribly clever.

Ocon and Alonso got 7^th and 8^th for Alpine, an assured result for the team and some very handy points after a perhaps trickier than expected start to the season. Good stuff for them. Gasly got the final point for AlphaTauri.

The Mercedes straight line pace advantage was immense and meant Verstappen had to have tyre advantage to get past Bottas, he couldn’t do it on the pit straight. It’s also how Hamilton was able to breeze past his rival with no difficulty at all. Possible that the hardest compounds, used this weekend, are also something Mercedes handle better than Red Bull.

My bet just looks dumb in retrospect, but that happens sometimes.

We’re off to Spain next, in a week.

Morris Dancer