Max Verstappen, 2nd behind Valtteri Bottas in Turkey, takes the lead of the championship at the expense of Lewis Hamilton

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A first for its last races. Valtteri Bottas won Sunday, October 10 on the Istanbul circuit after a race he led almost from start to finish. The Finn is looking to victory for the first time since the 2020 Russian Grand Prix, a few weeks away from leaving the German team. Bottas is ahead of the two Red Bull single-seaters of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez. Starting 11th on the grid, Lewis Hamilton had made a good comeback to 3rd place, before returning to the pits late and seeing the peloton come back at the end of the race. He finally grabs 5th place, behind Charles Leclerc (Ferrari).

After an eventful start, marked by the spinning of Fernando Alonso in the first corner in particular, the race was much calmer, far from the rainy madness of last year. The fight was played from a distance between Max Verstappen, little worried but unable to put pressure on the Finn, and Lewis Hamilton, held back in his comeback by a bad strategic choice. With this result, the Dutchman takes the lead in the drivers’ standings, with six points on the defending champion.

Before finishing in 5th place, Lewis Hamilton, penalized and started 11th, had embarked on a crazy comeback. Having started off with the lights out, he passed his opponents one after the other to climb up to the gates of the top 4, where he stumbled for a long time on Sergio Perez, the two pilots offering themselves a few passes of arms on Track. The Briton finally recovered third place in the pitstop game, before losing two positions after stopping late to put on a new set of tires that he never managed to heat up.

The other good comeback of the day is to be put to the credit of Carlos Sainz. The Spaniard from Ferrari, who started at the back of the grid after changing his engine, increased his overtaking in the first half of the race to grab eighth place and a position in points. He was also elected driver of the day.

Starting 3rd on the grid, Charles Leclerc found himself in the lead after the stops by Bottas and Verstappen. Ferrari then tried to bring its driver non-stop to the checkered flag. A strategy that lasted a few laps, before Bottas, faster on his new tires, made short work of the number 16 single-seater. The Monegasque ended up returning to the pits in his turn, and he managed to contain Lewis Hamilton to keep his 4th place.

The race was also marked by questions about the tires, depending on the evolving weather conditions. The first drivers to enter the pit lane chose to keep the intermediate wet track tires. Only Aston Martin and Sebastian Vettel tried their hand at dry tires, before returning to the pits after just one lap, due to loss of control on the track. The German finished 18th when he was in the point for changing the tires.


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