Race Review: Turkish GP

Turkey. A tale of tyres, two bulls and the driest wet race in ages. If you weren’t clued up on tyre strategy before Istanbul, then you definitely are now.

Turkey was always going to be a good race… have you seen Turn 8?! But aside from that, the 2020 Turkish GP was packed full of trials and tribulations; Sir Lewis Hamilton taking his 7th world title, Charles Leclerc having a podium slip through his fingers on the last corner, and Valtteri Bottas spinning a total of 5 times throughout the entire race.

Free Practice

FP1 was nice and smooth sailing, the sun was shining, new helmets from Vettel and Norris and of course Red Bull’s tribute livery to their manufacturer Honda, who are leaving at the end of this F1 season. No hard feelings, however, as Honda and Red Bull have said they will work together after F1 on other projects.

Hamilton was then hit with a 10-place grid penalty for Sunday’s race after taking a new ICE, and Sainz was to start at the back of the grid after a whole new power unit.

Red Bull were slightly off the pace, however, with Max struggling with grip and Checo over a second off Hamilton who finished top of the rankings. Verstappen found a way through his poor grip to go second fastest and was closely followed by Leclerc.

In the words of Yuki Tsunoda, FP2 was a ‘traffic paradise,’ as Stroll held up several cars behind him before nearly grinding to a halt during the session. The tailwind at Turn 9 caught Nicholas Latifi out twice, with Pierre Gasly having issues with his seat position and claiming his ‘arms are too short to reach the steering wheel.’

The saga of Kimi and the drink continued, as water leaked all over his boots and into his helmet due to a poorly connected drinks pipe, meaning he had to box to get it fixed. Hamilton, Leclerc and Bottas took the top 3 positions.

Anyone else have Post Traumatic Spa Disorder on Saturday? Rain overnight and showers in the morning saw the track and paddock covered in water, and Williams came prepared with their themed paper boats and were expecting Crofty to say, ‘It’s lights out and away we row!’

Lots of standing water saw spin after spin after spin. George Russell caused a brief red flag after beaching his Williams at Turn 2; he was lucky to escape the barriers. Verstappen’s 360 save was enough to keep him in the runnings and placed him P2, with Gasly P1 and Perez P3 rounding up the all Honda top 3.

Qualifying

Qualifying saw a shock exit from Daniel Ricciardo who was knocked out by Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz; a tactical move some might say as Sainz technically didn’t need to run as he was starting at the back of Sunday’s grid anyway. McLaren took this poor qualifying as an opportunity to change 4 components on the Aussie’s car, meaning he too, would accompany the Spaniard on the back row.

Mick Schumacher made it into Q2 for the first time in his career, and it was at that moment that everyone became a Haas fan. Russell went wide through the final corner, subsequently messing up his flying lap and knocking him out in Q2. But from Williams’ disappointment, we saw Alpine’s triumph as Alonso qualified P5 in Q3; his highest qualifying position for 7 years.

Hamilton went fastest but his engine penalty dropped him back to P11, meaning he had to hand his pole position over to Bottas.

The starting grid was as follows:

P1 Bottas, P2 Verstappen, P3 Leclerc, P4 Gasly, P5 Alonso, P6 Perez, P7 Norris, P8 Stroll, P9 Tsunoda, P10 Vettel, P11 Hamilton, P12 Ocon, P13 Russell, P14 Schumacher, P15 Latifi, P16 Giovinazzi, P17 Räikkönen, P18 Mazepin, P19 Sainz, P20 Ricciardo

Race Day

At lights out, Bottas had a considerably better start than he did last year, avoiding any contact into Turn 1, which this year came between Gasly and Alonso. The Alpine gained a considerable amount on the AlphaTauri after starting one row behind, but as they headed into Turn 1, Perez came on the inside of Gasly, pushing him wide and therefore into Alonso.

For want of a better term, he was sandwiched (or as DC suggested the French version might be, baguetted.) Gasly was eventually given a 5 second stop and go penalty, and 2 penalty points for this incident, which could be seen as extremely harsh given the circumstances, however the incident did severely affect Alonso’s race. Fernando’s unlucky streak continued, as he then went on to clip Schumacher, causing the FIA to also give him a 5 second stop and go and 2 penalty points.

Yuki Tsunoda was really living up to the term ‘pocket rocket,’ as he managed to keep Hamilton behind for 6 laps. Sainz was obviously attempting the last to first challenge as he had made up 8 places in 10 laps. A twitch in the tyres after slightly clipping the ‘sausage curbs’ caused him to make contact with Vettel as he overtook down the inside, a disadvantage to racing in wet conditions at a track where there are so many overtaking opportunities.

Ricciardo was charting new territory as he was the first to pit for new Inters on Lap 23, the rest of the field eagle-eyed to see how he would perform. Sadly, the gamble didn’t pay off, as he slipped down the order and couldn’t get much, if any, heat into his tyres.

We saw wheel to wheel action as Hamilton and Perez scrapped for P4 on Lap 35. Lewis coursed round the outside of the Red Bull on Turn 12, before diving down the inside of Turn 13 and pushing Perez into the pit lane entry. They went side by side round Turn 14, with Hamilton just gaining the edge as they flew down the pit straight, but Perez wasn’t about to give the position away that easily. As on lap 1 with Gasly, Perez took the inside line to get his position of P4 back.

On Lap 38, Vettel took a huge gamble by taking on the medium slicks, which unfortunately, didn’t pay off. After just 1 lap on the yellow rimmed tyres, he pitted for new Inters, after slipping and sliding his way around the circuit and almost crashing on the way into the pits.

Hamilton’s refusal on Lap 42 to box for new tyres would go on to cost him in the long run, as Charles Leclerc quickly found out, his risk to stay out didn’t quite pay off either. He was told if he could keep Bottas behind, he was on track to his first win of the season, but eventually was overtaken by the Finn on new rubber, and then went on to box, costing him the victory.

After nearly 10 laps, Hamilton finally boxed, but not after a back and forth with his engineers. Gasly, who had more heat in his tyres, was quickly closing in on him and Lewis couldn’t close the gap to the Ferrari of Leclerc in front of him.

In his own words, the 2021 Turkish Grand Prix was ‘one of the best races I’ve had ever,’ as Valtteri Bottas went on to take both the fastest lap and his 10th career win in F1. Both Red Bulls finished behind him, Max P2 and Checo P3, with the Dutchman reclaiming the lead of the Drivers’ Championship by 6 points with just 6 races to go.

The final grid lined up as follows:

P1 Bottas, P2 Verstappen, P3 Perez, P4 Leclerc, P5 Hamilton, P6 Gasly, P7 Norris, P8 Sainz, P9 Stroll, P10 Ocon, P11 Giovinazzi, P12 Räikkönen, P13 Ricciardo, P14 Tsunoda, P15 Russell, P16 Alonso, P17 Latifi, P18 Vettel, P19 Schumacher and P20 Mazepin.

Driver of the Day: Sainz

The Spaniard had looked incredibly quick all weekend in the Prancing Horse, despite the looming penalty above his head. He didn’t let that stop him, however, and by gaining 8 positions on the opening 10 laps, absolutely deserves the first Driver of the Day of his F1 career.

Biggest Crash: Russell

Thankfully, there were no major crashes this weekend in Istanbul, however George’s crash in FP3 caused a brief red flag as he couldn’t get his Williams going again after beaching it at Turn 2.

Overtake of the Day: Perez on Hamilton

The best overtake of the Grand Prix had to be Perez on Hamilton at Turn 1. You could see how aggressively, yet fairly, the Mexican was driving, and after Hamilton gained the advantage on him down the pit straight, you could see Checo itching to get P4 back and sending it cleanly down the apex. It was a great wheel to wheel battle, which you can watch here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBsnDIFbbb4

Biggest Heartbreak: Alonso

His best qualifying position in 7 years taken away on that first lap, Fernando found it hard to recover and after making contact with Mick, it was all downhill for the Spaniard who went on to eventually finish P16. Not where he wanted to be, especially after Alpine had looked so quick all weekend.

Best Radio Comment: Räikkönen

Once again Kimi, you will not have the drink! After having to box in FP2 due to his drinks pipe leaking all in his helmet and boots, the Finn was not happy, saying it is the most simple part in the whole car.

“I have water running in my ****ing boots because your drinking system is leaking like ****”

You can check out the best team radios from the weekend here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltN8ya9-skE

Takeaways

Pierre Gasly and P6 is a better love story than anyone could ever wish for. The Turkish Grand Prix is also only the 12th time in Formula 1 history that all 20 cars have finished the race!

Red Bull have also proved that white liveries aren’t all that unlucky, with both cars finishing on the podium. Perhaps the complete opposite of Mercedes’ white livery at the 2019 German GP, where Bottas DNF and Hamilton finished only P9

One thing we have learnt from this race is that tyre strategy is extremely important in F1. We saw it when Ricciardo pitted too early, to when Vettel chose the wrong tyres and eventually with Hamilton who pitted too late. It’s all about finding that perfect opportunity, and maybe with a little bit of luck involved too.

A round of applause is in order for Esteban Ocon, who went all 58 laps on his first set of Intermediates. By the end, let’s be honest, they were more like ‘Interslicks,’ than Intermediates! How he didn’t have a tyre failure (props to Pirelli) and managed to get a point is insane. He did only hold P10 by 0.7 seconds and lost 50 seconds to Sainz on the final 14 laps, but to keep going is incredible. Did you see the state of his tyres at the end of the race?!

Rather than Max vs Lewis in the championship, it’s more like Honda vs Lewis, as both Yuki and Checo drove extremely defensively to keep him behind. We also heard Gasly say in an interview that he would try and keep Hamilton behind to help Max, but hey, this is all part of the fun and they’re technically not doing anything wrong!

And finally, it quite often comes down to the team call. We saw this debate in Russia with Lando and Lewis both initially wanting to stay on slicks, and we saw it here with Hamilton initially turning down the idea of a pit stop. There are many questions over whether Hamilton should have stayed out or pitted earlier. It had the potential to be a high risk, high reward situation; if he had stayed out, he could have held position, particularly as Leclerc went through the graining of the Intermediates, which is an issue we continue to see. However, with this comes the risk of a tyre failure and a DNF, which holds far too much power this late on in the season. It’s a fine balance as the team often see the bigger picture; if Hamilton had come in earlier on, who knows what the final order would have been.

….. And please, no more wet races this season!