Boots won in Russia over Verstappen, Hamilton third after a penalty

09/27/2020 World



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Valteri Boots
Walter Boots; photo: Mercedes

Valteri Botas (Mercedes) won the Russian Grand Prix over Max Verstappen with Red Bull. Finn’s teammate Lewis Hamilton finished third after receiving two penalties of 5 seconds each for unregulated training starts on the starting grid.

Shortly before departure, it became clear that Alex Albon and Nicolas Latifi had changed gearboxes. This did not particularly affect Williams’ driver rating. However, Albon went from 15th to 15th on the grid. The penalty for the Red Bull rider meant advancing one position ahead of Charles Leclerc, Daniel Kwiat, Lance Stroll, George Russell and Sebastian Vettel.

The German Ferrari driver received a cake this morning for his 250th Grand Prix start.

Flight control said it was investigating Lewis Hamilton to begin training at an unauthorized location.

The air temperature at the beginning of the race was 29 degrees, on the track – 41, and the risk of rain was estimated to be missing – 0%.

Valteri Botas attacked at the start and overtook Max Verstappen, tried to overtake Hamilton, but the Englishman regained his position

The Red Bull driver took off from the track but managed to return to third place, beating the great Daniel Ricciardo. The Australian then went behind his teammate Esteban Ocon.

Back in the column there were two incidents that put Carlos Sainz and Lance Stroll out of the race. The accidents led to the release of a safety car. George Russell, Albon and Lando Norris made pit stops after safe units appeared. Lando had trouble driving his McLaren.

At the end of the fourth of a total of 53 laps, the safety car returned to the pit lane. At the restart, Hamilton retained the lead, followed by Boots and Verstappen. Ocon was fourth ahead of Ricciardo, Pérez, Gasley, Leclerc and Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean, who made good use of the chaos in the first round.

Hamilton paused a little over a second in front of Boots when the flight control decision came for the start of training outside the allowed zone. It was twice the additional time of 5 seconds to break two different rules.

“I have no grip. Total madness!” Verstappen called over the radio.

Mercedes asked Hamilton about his punishments.

“What happened?” Asked the Englishman.

“Those start on the way to the grill, 5 seconds each.”

“This doesn’t make sense. Where is it written in the rules? Everything to stop me … But okay,” was Lewis’s response.

On lap 12, Hamilton was 1.4 seconds ahead of Boots and 3 seconds ahead of Verstappen.

“Start closing the gap with Lewis,” was the instruction to Walter.

The six-time world champion received a message to pick up the pace and buy enough time against his rivals in the column. The result was immediately the fastest lap for the Englishman. Meanwhile, Pérez took fifth place from Ricciardo. Immediately afterwards, the Australian pitted and put on hard tires.

At the end of round 16, Hamilton pitted, waited in place for 10 seconds, after which the mechanics put hard tires on him.

“Absolute nonsense,” said the Englishman on the radio on the way back to the track. He was eleventh in the column, behind Vettel.

On lap 19, Hamilton was sixth. Boots at the helm, followed by Verstappen, Pérez, Löckler and Quiat, had not stopped in boxing. Lewis was nearly 11 seconds behind the Alpha Tauri driver.

Perez was on the cake in round 21, coming out sixth, ahead of Vettel and Okon.

Hamilton wasn’t sure if he would make it to the end with this hard drive, and he wasn’t happy with the decision to pit it.

He also asked his racing engineer Pete Bonnington for no information as “there is no difference.”

Verstappen, in turn, pitted for a new toughness in round 25, Boots did the same after the Red Bull driver and also took on the harder tires. Absolutely calm, the Finn returned to the track 6.6 seconds ahead of Löckler (still without boxes) and almost 10 seconds ahead of Max, who was ahead of Kwiat.

After the Leclerc and Kwiat Botas pits, he was 13 seconds ahead of Verstappen and 21.3 ahead of Hamilton. Pérez was fourth again, followed by Ricciardo, Leclerc, Ocon, Quiat, Raikkonen (no boxing), Gasley, Norris. 20 laps before the checkered flag, Lewis had to melt about 7 seconds against Verstappen.

The gap between Hamilton and Verstappen widened to just over 10 seconds after the Red Bull driver picked up the pace a bit.

10 laps before the checkered flag, Boots continued to lead calmly at the Sochi Autodrome with a lead of just over 11 seconds ahead of Verstappen. Hamilton was less than 10 seconds behind the Red Bull driver. A safe virtual car mode was briefly activated on the track after Grosjean passed the restrictive signs at the second turn.

In the closing laps of the tenth round of the 2020 World Cup, there were actually battles after third place. Boots beat Verstappen and Hamilton. Pérez finished fourth, followed by Ricciardo, Leclerc, Ocon, Quiat, Gasley. Albon was tenth and in the last round he received a 5 second penalty for the now famous second turn.

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