How Hamilton took a “completely different journey” to Portugal victory

“It was a completely different journey to get the result we just got.”

That was Lewis Hamilton’s assessment of his 97th Formula 1 career victory at the 2021 Portuguese Grand Prix. But, really, his triumph at the Algarve Circuit last weekend did bear some noticeable similarities to his win at the same track last October.

In both races Hamilton fell behind his key rival, and he also had to make vital passes to secure the lead in each event. The difference this time around, though, is that things simply mattered more in terms of the title fight when F1 arrived in Portugal.

Not only is the championship battle still barely getting going, but this time it is clearly not an intra-Mercedes affair. Max Verstappen and Red Bull are firmly in the mix, and the Dutchman’s presence and pressure – allied with Valtteri Bottas beating Hamilton to pole – added up to a series of key tests the world champion faced before securing his second Portuguese GP win.

Test one: Ace the restart (failed)

Hamilton made a slightly slower getaway from the front row compared to Bottas, but it wasn’t enough to give Verstappen a real chance going into the rapid opening corners. In fact, the main action on lap one came from further back, with Carlos Sainz Jr easily dispatching Sergio Perez at Turn 1 after the Mexican’s poor start – which he blamed on a lack of grid grip away from the racing line – and Lando Norris and Esteban Ocon exchanging bold passes. Norris braving things out around the outside of the blind approach to Turns 10/11 eventually decided that fight.

Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes W12, Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes W12, Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB16B, Carlos Sainz Jr., Ferrari SF21, Lando Norris, McLaren MCL35M, Sergio Perez, Red Bull Racing RB16B, and the rest of the field away at the start

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Bottas’s lead was 0.9 seconds at the end of the first tour, but that was soon irrelevant after Kimi Raikkonen’s blunder – changing a setting on his Alfa Romeo’s steering wheel meant he clattered into team-mate Antonio Giovinazzi on the start/finish straight. The contact showered the circuit in debris and Raikkonen – who had the good grace to hope Giovinazzi’s left rear tyre wasn’t damaged over his team radio in the clash’s immediate aftermath – found his front wing wedged under his car. This stopped him making the Turn 1 right-hander and put him out in the gravel beyond the corner.

A five-lap safety car period followed, with the cars twice passing through the pits as the main straight was cleared. The suspension was rather elongated because “Kimi’s car was still being recovered at Turn 1 in the runoff, and there also the safety car spotted some debris in a couple of other corners that needed to be retrieved”, according to race director Michael Masi.

When the safety car did peel off for the restart at the beginning of lap seven of 66, Hamilton faced his first test. And it ended up being the only one he failed.

"I was in Valtteri’s tow and [Max] was about to pull out. I pulled out and gave [him] Valtteri’s tow. And I was like, ‘you idiot!’, to myself" Lewis Hamilton

Mercedes was wary of the long run from the exit of the penultimate corner – Turn 14, high up on the hill overlooking the pitlane entry and sweeping dramatically down to the right – to the braking zone at Turn 1. Bottas was therefore already briefed to leave any restart late, and he only hit the gas at the foot of the sharp rise to the grid that ends the lap. And here Hamilton was caught out.

“I was focusing on Valtteri, naturally, and literally – just for a split second – looked in my mirrors to see where Max was and in that split second that’s when Valtteri went,” he later explained. “That wasn’t great and then I was in Valtteri’s tow and [Max] was about to pull out. I pulled out and gave [him] Valtteri’s tow. And I was like, ‘you idiot!’, to myself.”

Hamilton’s error was doubly costly. He couldn’t attack for the lead and was under pressure from Verstappen, who lifted as he drew level with Hamilton on the inside before then switching around to the outside line. Hamilton was snookered – unable to move back left and with Verstappen being nicely dragged along by the leader. The result was an around the outside move, with the Red Bull driver catching another of 2021’s late oversteer snaps in wheel-to-wheel passes, but, unlike in Bahrain, staying within track limits. This allowed Verstappen to give chase to Bottas.

Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes W12, Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB16B, and Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes W12

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Test two: Reclaim second (passed)

For the next four laps, Verstappen pursued Bottas. The race was finely poised at this point, with the leader soon realising he was struggling for pace on the medium tyres and Verstappen looking the fastest of three as Hamilton dropped back.

“I fell back, maybe a second or something like that, and I needed to get closer but for a moment there was far too big a gap,” Hamilton explained. “I wasn’t in the DRS, and I just had to gather my thoughts and make a couple of tweaks in terms of how I was driving and then start on the attack again.”

He got a big break in his bid to reclaim second on lap 11. Verstappen had just fallen out of DRS range behind Bottas as a result of a “little wobble” the Red Bull suffered coming through Turn 14 on the previous tour. Verstappen was referring to the second of two oversteer snaps he had after passing the apex, the second of which forced him to fully lift off the gas and gather his car, which gave Hamilton everything he needed.

“Lewis was already super-close behind and he got me into Turn 1,” Verstappen said of the pass, in which Hamilton simply took the inside line running down the pitstraight and powered by with the benefit of DRS. It was quite a turnaround from the Red Bull driver given he had started the previous lap with a look to Bottas’s inside at Turn 1, ratcheting up the pressure. But it was a sign of things to come in regard to Verstappen’s speed in a straight line versus the Black Arrows.

Hamilton’s second test wasn’t quite over, though. Although the Mercedes had swept ahead at Turn 1, Verstappen stayed with him and attacked to the outside of the tight Turn 3 right. But Hamilton simply had to run him out of road on the exit by taking the racing line. This probably unwise attempt meant Verstappen was 1.2s adrift by the end of the lap and Hamilton’s attentions were solely focused on his team-mate’s lead.

Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes W12, passes Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB16B

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Test three: Take the lead (passed)

Bottas was leading, but he wasn’t happy.

“I don’t know why in the first stint I didn’t really have the pace,” he later rued. “I mean, I felt everything in terms of the race start, the restart, everything was good from my side, but I could see quite early on in the race that with the mediums I just didn’t have pace like Lewis and Max had. I have no idea way.”

Although Mercedes couldn’t explain exactly why Bottas wasn’t happy with the mediums the leading trio had started on in the race’s aftermath, it could see that the Finn’s problem wasn’t consistent. Sometimes he’d be struggling for grip at the front of the car, other times it was the rear threatening to snap away. Whatever was causing the issues, Bottas’s lead over Hamilton never grew above a second over the nine laps that followed Hamilton’s pass on Verstappen.

But it would be fair to say that Hamilton didn’t exactly look comfortable either. Several times he had to saw at his W12’s wheel to keep the rear in check – particularly coming through Turn 14’s apex. The difference was that he didn’t drop back from the leader as a result and was a constant threat, despite the constant dirty air he faced.

Bottas chose to cover his team-mate a long way before the braking zone, and when it did come time to slam on the brakes he was a long way to the inside too. Bottas visibly lost momentum as a result of his tight line and Hamilton swept through

“It’s just knowledge of the tyres, really and knowing which ones you can lean on and where you can… I can’t really say too much, to be honest,” he later said, cryptically, before adding: “I think I just managed to get the balance pretty sweet, better for the race than it was for qualifying.”

Perhaps it was being unable to pull away from Hamilton that led Bottas to go defensive early when the pass for the lead was upon him. Hamilton crossed the line 0.5s behind his team-mate at the end of lap 19, down from 0.8s the lap before, and although he was closing fast with DRS, he still had a lot to do to take on Bottas with a dive up the inside.

But Bottas chose to cover his team-mate a long way before the braking zone, and when it was time to slam on the brakes he was a long way to the inside too. Bottas visibly lost momentum as a result of his tight line and Hamilton swept through, serenely taking first on the outside line.

Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes W12, passes Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes W12

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Test four: Build a pitstop-pass proof lead (passed)

Hamilton now had the lead, but he still had just over two-thirds of the race to run. It was over the middle third that he really won the event.

In the run up to the only round of pitstops the leaders would make, he edged away by nearly 0.2s a lap ahead of Bottas. It was classic Hamilton – he’d kept his tyres alive despite the strain of having to battle back past a rival and then attack and push on past another. Then when in clear air he was able to make the rubber work better than Bottas had managed.

“Lewis is very good at overtaking, he seems to know where to position the car building up to it,” Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin said of Hamilton’s performance in the race’s first half.

“He also doesn’t keep trying lap after lap, he will just sit there and then takes the opportunity. But his feel for the tyres I think is the key to how he manages to sit there and not overheat them and look after them. He has got the same tyres as everyone else, and you damage them by getting them hot – by sliding them. So, the key to it is just keeping them cool and managing the sliding. I think he is just better at it than the others.”

Verstappen was 0.7s behind Bottas after Hamilton got through into the lead and he maintained a similar position until the end of lap 30. Time and time again, Verstappen would close in during the middle sector, only for Bottas to pull out a crucial advantage as they ran through Turns 14 and 15 – merely an acceleration zone leading onto the pitstraight – and stay in front on the run down to Turn 1.

“Running in clean air, [Max] had very good pace – we lacked a bit of straightline speed today,” Red Bull team boss Christian Horner surmised. “It was easier for them to pass us, than us to pass them.”

On lap 32, Verstappen fell out of Bottas’s DRS range again and three laps later, when Red Bull finally pulled the trigger and called him in to start the next key test of Hamilton’s race, he was 5.2s back from the leader and 1.2s off Bottas.

Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes W12, Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB16B,

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Test five: Keep up the pace on harder tyres (passed)

Red Bull had come into the race with both its cars having a new set of hard tyres to deploy, while Mercedes only had slightly scrubbed sets to offer Hamilton and Bottas. Although Pirelli had suggested a strategy of medium-soft was faster in theory, the white-walled hard rubber emerged as the best race tyre.

But the fresher rubber and the undercut still might not have been enough to get Verstappen ahead of Bottas. Red Bull also needed something of a gift from Mercedes, which it got in the form of a slightly slower stop for Bottas – who lost a second sitting stationary after he’d come in to cover Verstappen’s stop one lap later.

Bottas nevertheless exited the pits quite some way ahead of Verstappen, but the delay meant that when he struggled firing the hards up to temperature on the smooth, low-grip surface, the Red Bull was close enough to pounce. Both squirmed for grip exiting Turn 3 on Bottas’s out-lap, but his slide lasted longer, and Verstappen got a run going through the fast Turn 4 left. That put him on the inside into the Turn 5 hairpin and the move was sealed.

Bottas’s out-lap struggles were relayed to Hamilton, but he was under no real threat, as the gap to Verstappen was established at 3.2s

Mercedes immediately brought Hamilton in one lap after his team-mate’s stop – the gap between them 4s at the start of the lap when Bottas pitted, which meant Mercedes could afford to cover Verstappen without inadvertently threatening Hamilton’s lead with a Bottas undercut. The benefit of getting the ‘better’ stop timing, was actually the reality of Bottas’s pace deficit on the day.

Bottas’s out-lap struggles were relayed to Hamilton, but he was under no real threat, as the gap to Verstappen was established at 3.2s. The FP2 long running had been centred on understanding the mediums – and in Mercedes’ case, the softs as well – and so it was somewhat uncertain which team would have the better time on the hards.

Verstappen initially started to trim Hamilton’s gap, but a string of fastest laps from the Briton soon reversed the trend and established his successful passing of his final real test – although not at a vastly faster rate. Over the 24 laps that first followed Hamilton’s stop, he edged clear at an average of 0.055s per lap.

Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes W12, passes his pit board

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Test six: Resist the risk of chasing the bonus point (passed)

Although the race for the win was over for much of the race’s final third, largely thanks to the deficit Verstappen faced after being stuck behind Bottas, one of modern F1’s much debated rules still had a big influence over the rest of proceedings.

Hamilton’s efforts in stretching his lead over Verstappen meant he produced a fastest lap of 1m20.933s. Although that was clearly the best time of the three leaders all things being equal, it wasn’t going to stand as the race’s fastest lap once Red Bull had “focused on wanting to get to the soft tyre to have a crack at that point for the fastest lap” with Perez, according to Horner.

Perez had seen off Sainz at the restart and then battled by Norris, who made an even greater position grab the lap after the safety car came in. By completing a mammoth 51-lap first stint, Perez had cycled into the lead when the top three pitted. Hamilton gently reeled him in, taking the lead back for good with a simple DRS run down the main straight at the start of lap 51 – the winner initially confused as to why Perez wasn’t being shown blue flags.

Perez’s late stop for softs gave him a seemingly simple shot to take the bonus point, which he duly looked to have secured with a 1m20.643s, 11 laps from home. But Mercedes had other ideas.

After a “faulty” exhaust sensor had put Bottas’s engine briefly into a protective mode approaching the final 10 laps and “cost him five seconds” to Verstappen, per Toto Wolff, Mercedes opted to pit him again with three tours to go to take his own set of softs. Wolff later reflected that this was actually “a little bit of a stupid moment”, as Mercedes had acted one lap too early and allowed Red Bull to pit Verstappen too and give him the chance to better Bottas’s 1m19.865s on the final tour. Verstappen did, but his 1m19.849s was set after running beyond the kerbs out of Turn 14, which meant it was duly deleted, much to his frustration.

But Hamilton, who came home nearly 30s in front at the finish once his vanquished rivals had pitted to establish a different and lesser game, wisely, wasn’t interested.

“I’d come from third place, so for me it was a solid job and there are days when it’s necessary to take the extra risk to take the extra [point], but today wasn’t one of those,” he concluded.

Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, 1st position, sprays the victory Champagne

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images