Portuguese Grand Prix – The Editor’s Top / Flop

The TOP 3:

1. Hamilton cuts a figure

If he missed his 100th pole position by 7 milliseconds on Saturday, Lewis Hamilton set the record straight the next day during the race.

The British driver overtook his two competitors, Max Verstappen and Valtteri Bottas, in style on the track to claim his 97th career victory.

The reigning world champion has warned the competition: it will be more difficult than ever to dethrone him!

2. Alpine finally meets expectations.

AT LAST! It took three races for Alpine to be able to show the potential of the French team, which has accomplished tremendous work since the beginning of the season to get closer to its direct competitors.

From Saturday onwards, Esteban Ocon maximized the potential of his blue car by taking 6th place, even feeling frustrated to concede 5th place to Carlos Sainz in his Ferrari. In the race, the Frenchman was one of the main highlights with his splendid overtakes on the outside at turn 1.

A ???????????????????????? race for @AlpineF1Team included this move by @OconEsteban ????#PortugueseGP ???????? #F1 pic.twitter.com/Wqxynpb5T5

— Formula 1 (@F1) May 3, 2021

If he somewhat missed his qualifying, Fernando Alonso showed all his class in the race with a bold unconventional strategy and a magnificent end of the race to secure the points for 8th place.

With Ocon in 7th place, Alpine achieves a good group performance and climbs to 5th place among the constructors ahead of AlphaTauri. A performance to repeat!

3. Norris uncompromising, Ricciardo’s crazy comeback: McLaren still in the mix

Once again, Lando Norris has been impeccable. Not a single mistake in qualifying or in the race. He even makes a magnificent restart behind the Safety Car caused by Räikkonen and even manages to pass Pérez’s Red Bull to take 4th place, quite impressive!

Overtaken by the Mexican after about ten laps, the young Brit then drove a clean and solid race to take 5th place and finish as the Best of the rest.

On his side, Ricciardo, after completely missing his qualifications (16th on the grid), was determined to make up for it on Sunday. Also making a good start by overtaking three competitors from the 1st lap, the Australian made one overtaking move after another to climb back into the points zone.

On the same strategy as Alonso, the Australian managed to bring back two points from this Grand Prix which seemed to be going badly before the lights went out. He could have done even better without a too long pit stop which allowed Fernando Alonso to overtake him on his out lap.

With this good result, McLaren confirms that it is indeed the third strongest team on the grid.

The FLOP 3:

1. Mazepin becoming more and more embarrassing

What to say? Starting dead last on the grid, dropped by 50 seconds by his teammate (!) Schumacher, who is a rookie like him, and to top it all off, a very dangerous move that could have cost Pérez, the race leader, an abandonment.

If the excuse of inexperience may have passed during the opening round in Bahrain, it must be acknowledged that the Russian will hardly be able to continue like this for long.

The comparison with Schumacher, who fought the whole race with the Williams, is very painful for Mazepin, we no longer have too many doubts about his level being too low for a Formula 1 driver.

The Haas driver will have to quickly emulate Lance Stroll and shake off his reputation!

2. The disappointment Carlos Sainz

Starting 5th on the grid and 4th at the dawn of the first lap before the safety car came in, much was expected from Carlos Sainz in this Grand Prix. Maybe a little too much.

The Spanish driver had a hard time getting his soft tires to warm up and plummeted down the ranks to settle around 8th place. The first driver to go through the pits fairly early in the race, he comes out on medium tires, which will ruin his end of the race.

Overtaken by the Alpine drivers, Ricciardo and even Gasly (who was not comfortable with the AlphaTauri on this track), he finishes just outside the points in 11th place. While Ferrari bears a large part of the responsibility for this result, Sainz also did not perform at his best level, especially at the race restart.

Disappointing.

3. Portimão, a lackluster show for this second edition

Let’s finish this Flop 3 with the layout and the spectacle of this race. If the exceptional conditions last year provided an absolutely crazy start to the race, it was a whole different story this year.

We cannot speak of a purge proper (as evidenced by Ricciardo’s comeback, the overtaking of the Alpines and Hamilton, as well as the battle for the fastest lap in the race), this Grand Prix was clearly not up to the standard of the first two of this year or of its race from last year.

Then, is it the fault of the layout, the current single-seaters, or the too conservative tires? Come discuss it with us in our Twitch Live “Radio MI” this Monday evening at 9 p.m.!

Anyway, the show was less present and it’s a shame!