Nithyanandam Ramasamy
Lewis Hamilton won the 97th race of his career at the 2021 Portuguese GP. He had to compete hard against his teammate Valtteri Bottas and Max Verstappen at the earlier stage of the race for the victory. Now, let’s move on from the impeccable weekend for the seven-time world champion and see what the data say about the 2021 Portuguese GP. The race had its occasional moments, but the data from the race tell us some fascinating stories.
Who started the race well?
The first lap of the race wasn’t as dramatic as the 2020 Portuguese GP at Portimao. Only 6-places were gained in the first lap of the race. The overtakes were very less compared to that of the 2020 Portuguese GP, where Kimi Raikkonen and Carlos Sainz had gained 11 and 5-places respectively in the first lap alone. Only 7-drivers have started the race on soft tyres, wherein 3-drivers have gained 4-places. Esteban Ocon was the only soft tyre starter to lose a position, and Daniel Ricciardo was the only medium tyre starter to gain places in the first lap of the race.
Has the safety car neutralized the race and help soft tyre starters conserve the tyres?
At the start of the second lap, Kimi decided to multi-task and rear-ended his teammate. It eventually ended his race and brought out the first-ever safety car in Portugal. Let’s leave Kimi alone, he knows what he’s doing!
The standard pit stop window for soft tyre starters at the 2020 Portuguese GP was on lap-11/14 and at the 2021 Portuguese GP, the standard pit stop window for soft tyre starters was on lap 21/25, unless you are a Lance Stroll. The safety car period eventually assisted drivers to manage their tyres. The safety car period not only helped drivers manage their tyre during the warmer temperature, but it has also neutralized the effectiveness of the race.
How Max Verstappen undercut Valtteri Bottas?
Max Verstappen overtook Valtteri Bottas on lap-37, right after Finn’s pit stop. There’s no better feeling than watching your pit crew pull off an extraordinary pit stop, which results in gaining a position. Red Bull Racing pit crew are super fast as they are the best pit crew this season. Their pit stops have been averaged at 2.28s while Mercedes pit stops are averaged at 3.35s this season. That’s more than a second lost for Mercedes during the pit stop, which is humongous. A pit stop can change the outcome of the race.
And that’s what happened at the 2021 Portuguese GP. Valtteri Bottas was ahead of Max Verstappen by 4.75s, a lap before Max Verstappen entered the pit lane. However, a 1.9s super-fast pit stop from the Red Bull Racing and a stunning out-lap helped Max Verstappen close the gap to Valtteri Bottas. Mercedes reacted to the potential undercut from Red Bull Racing by boxing him in the very next lap and had a disappointing pit stop of 3.3s pit stop. Valtteri Bottas lost 1.4s to Max Verstappen during the pit stop. Max Verstappen was breathing down his neck when he exited the pit and pounced on him when he struggled to get heat on to his new hard tyres. Red Bull Racing have depicted the beauty of the undercut and a perfect pit stop here. Have we robbed off a quality one on one battle between Max Verstappen and Valtteri Bottas because of a sub-par pit stop from the Mercedes?
What just happened to Carlos Sainz in the race?
Carlos Sainz’s weekend started well with a great qualifying session where he ended up the session in 5th. He’s also had a great start to the race when he moved up to 4th in the first lap. On top of it, his first stint on soft tyres was a quite decent one as well. However, his second stint on mediums was a struggle. He fell off the cliff only to finish in 11th position. He was just a passenger in the second half of the race as the medium tyres suffered a high amount of grain. How did that happen?
Has Ferrari made the wrong decision to send him out on medium tyres in the second stint?
Let’s look at the lap times of the drivers who were competing for points on medium tyres in the second stint. Sorry, Aston Martin! We have nothing against you. The lap times here are taken after the pit stops of Lando Norris, Carlos Sainz and Pierre Gasly. Carlos Sainz made his pit stop on lap-21, Lando Norris stopped on lap-22 and Pierre Gasly did the same on lap-24. That’s only 3-laps between Pierre Gasly and Carlos Sainz’s pit stop. Also, all 3-drivers were on the same soft-medium strategy.
Carlos Sainz lap times were 0.614s slower than Lando Norris per lap from lap-26 to the end of the race. He was 0.2s slower than Pierre Gasly at the same period even though Pierre Gasly lost around 3-seconds in a lap while defending Daniel Ricciardo. Without a doubt, soft-medium was one of the preferable strategies. On top of it, Pirelli through simulation predicted that soft-medium was the quickest strategy.
It’s palpable that Ferrari were the only team who suffered a graining on medium tyres. Carlos Sainz’s teammate Charles Leclerc has also completed only 25-laps on medium tyres in the first stint. In hindsight, it’s easy to say that Ferrari should have gone with hard tyres for Carlos Sainz. But they went with the quickest possible strategy and faced an unexpected tyre graining. Ferrari would be kicking themselves for missing out on scoring vital points, and there would be analysis at Maranello to understand the reason behind this unexpected tyre graining.
The 2021 Portuguese GP had its occasional moments eventually producing the classic HAM – VER – BOT podium. The race might have been different without the safety car appearance. Mercedes might have avoided their slow pit stop in hindsight, and even Ferrari might have gone with hard tyres in their second stint.
