Bottas’s win (perhaps his last for Mercedes before he moves to Alfa Romeo) keeps Mercedes ahead in the Constructors’ Championship. Verstappen’s second-place finish catapulted him back in the lead (over Lewis Hamilton) in the Drivers’ Championship.
ISTANBUL, Turkey—After a year of not winning a Grand Prix race, Valtteri Bottas overcame a tire-wearing Charles Leclerc to pass the Ferrari driver nine laps from the finish to take his 10th career victory Sunday at a wet Turkish Grand Prix. Bottas bettered Red Bull’s Max Verstappen by 14.5 seconds, while Verstappen’s teammate, Sergio Perez, finished third. Leclerc came in fourth.
Valtteri Bottas: From my side, it was one of the best races I’ve had – ever. The car was good in every condition with perfect confidence in it. I needed to focus all through the race. A difficult one but feels like a well-earned victory.
The runner-up spot gives Verstappen a six-point lead in the world championship with the same number of races remaining. “It seemed like Valtteri had more pace and could look after the tires better as well, so I’m happy to finish in second place,” he said. When asked about his chances of winning the season’s Drivers’ Championship, Verstappen took both a short and long view: “It has been close the whole year, and I’m sure it will be another close battle with Mercedes in Austin (next race in two weeks). We have to keep pushing, keep trying to improve, and we’ll see where we are at the end.”
Bottas held a commanding lead at the start with his intermediate tires and continued to hold that position until lap 41 when the Finn had to pit. Leclerc conserved his tires and took a six-second lead over Bottas. But Leclerc encountered graining on his tires late in the race and began losing time to Bottas. Bottas finally passed Leclerc with nine laps to go, and he kept the lead for good.
For Lewis Hamilton, it was the opposite story. The Brit had to begin the race from 11th due to an engine change penalty but moved up the grid to get as high as third place. Then, his Mercedes team wanted the Brit to pit (a decision with which Hamilton did not concur), and he finally did what the team requested, pitting after losing his position to Perez. Hamilton soon found himself just in front of Alpha Tauri’s Pierre Gasly and McLaren’s Lando Norris but he was able to hold them off to take fifth. Gasly ended up sixth, with Norris seventh.
Esteban Ocon took the last point position without stopping for new tires, holding off Alfa Romeo’s Antonio Giovinazzi by just a few tenths of a second. Carlos Sainz Jr. took eighth after beginning the race from the back of the grid. Lance Stroll finishing ninth in his Aston Martin.
Earlier in the race, Gasly collided with Alpine’s Fernando Alonso at the first turn and was issued a five-second penalty. But laps later, Alonso was also penalized for crashing with Haas driver Mick Schumacher. Those incidents aside, no driver retired for the day.
The next stop on the circuit–the United States Grand Prix in Austin, Texas–favors Hamilton as the season-long battle between the defending champion and his rival, Max Verstappen, continues as the schedule moves to North America. Austin will be run on October 24, followed by the Mexican GP on November 7.
Can’t believe Merc decided to box with Lewis there. After he made the decision to stay out, they should have committed to it. Would love to have been a fly on the wall of that debrief.