At a soaking wet Istanbul Park, the 2021 Turkey GP will start with Valtteri Bottas in the lead. Max Verstappen follows in second place, while Alonso gets a knock from Pierre Gasly in turn 1. The Spaniard does a 360 and falls from 5th to 17th place, after which he involuntarily lets Mick Schumacher – who started from his personal best position in 14th – spin a similar lap.
Both Carlos Sainz and Daniel Ricciardo started at the back due to new engines, and the Ferrari driver in particular continues to push hard. Lewis Hamilton, who started from 11th with such a grid penalty, is ninth behind Yuki Tsunoda and seems to take little risk. Until after a few laps he has had enough and overtakes him from the outside.
The first pit stop
On lap 11 Hamilton sets the fastest time and is already sixth. Max follows Bottas by about three seconds and reports that it is still very slippery. We see that shortly afterwards when Sainz loses grip while overtaking Vettel and taps him briefly. Hamilton, meanwhile, flies past Gasly and goes on the hunt for Sergio Pérez.
Max starts to close the gap to Bottas and sets the fastest time, after which Bottas immediately takes over that honor. Daniel Ricciardo is the first to make a pit stop from 16th place: the track is still not dry enough and he switches to new intermediates. He drives it slower at first, though, which doesn’t go unnoticed – other teams hold off on the pit stops for a while and continue on their erased inters.
No weather for slicks
Then we get to see a nice fight between Hamilton and Pérez. Lewis is wrong for corners and almost forces Pérez into the pit lane, then accelerates him out on the straight, but Checo brakes later and still holds the Brit behind him. Shortly afterwards, Red Bull calls Max Verstappen into the pit lane, where he gets new inters. Other drivers follow, including Bottas, but Sebastian Vettel is the only one who dares a medium slick. That turns out to be a wrong gamble: the Aston Martin slithers like mad across the track and immediately goes back in for intermediates.
Charles Leclerc is now in the lead and Lewis Hamilton also postpones his stop as long as possible: he is now in fourth place, behind Max Verstappen. The team wants to call him in, but does not agree. After going back and forth over the radio, he continues to ride on his old rubber for the time being. Can you finish a race on one set of tires? In this case it’s starting to look like it.
Hamilton falls back
With eleven laps to go, Bottas overtakes Leclerc, after which the Ferrari driver is immediately called in for new tires. It is Bottas, Verstappen, Hamilton with ten laps to go, but then Mercedes calls Hamilton in for new rubber. Pérez manages to overtake Leclerc beautifully and drives to third place. Hamilton finishes fifth and leaves no doubt on the radio that he would have liked to finish the race on his old tires.
Verstappen is building a lead in the championship: he is now six points ahead of Lewis Hamilton.
Results of the GP of Turkey 2021
01. Valtteri Bottas
02. Max Verstappen
03. Sergio Perez
04. Charles Leclerc
05. Lewis Hamilton
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