Max Verstappen wins thrilling 2021 French GP from Pole ahead of Lewis and Perez

Max Verstappen wins 2021 French GP from Pole in a thrilling finish ahead of Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton in P2 and Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez in P3.

Verstappen, who passed Lewis Hamilton with two laps to go to claim the thirteenth victory of his career, gave Red Bull their third consecutive win of the season. Also The Dutchman secured a hat-trick – pole position, the race win and fastest lap – for the first time in his F1 career.

Red Bull took leaf out of Mercedes strategy book to clinch their first ever hattrick of wins in Turbo Hybrid era. The Milton Keynes based team pulled a master stroke by stopping Verstappen twice to give him fresh tyres towards end of the race compared to one stop by other front runners including Mercedes duo Lewis and Bottas.

The Dutchman then using his fresher tyres to close up to the Mercedes, and passed Lewis on Lap 52 of 53 to to take home his third win of the year.

Valtteri Bottas ended up a disgruntled fourth behind Perez, having complained to Mercedes that he was ignored when he advised them to switch to a two-stop, as Red Bull did with Verstappen.

Behind the leading four, a superb day for McLaren saw Lando Norris finish a fine fifth, ahead of team mate Daniel Ricciardo, who enjoyed arguably his best race of the year to take sixth.

AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly demonstrated strong race pace to take his best ever finish in his home Grand Prix with P7, ahead of the Alpine of Fernando Alonso.

Sebastian Vettel made a long first stint work to take his third consecutive points finish with ninth, while team mate Lance Stroll completed the top 10 thanks to a late pass on the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz – capping off a bad day for the Scuderia, who lacked race pace at Paul Ricard, with Sainz ending up 11th as Leclerc could do no better than P16.

After Sainz, George Russell took 12th for his best finish this year for Williams, ahead of Yuki Tsunoda – recovering well from a pit lane start from a change of floor and gearbox to take 13th – with the second Alpine of Esteban Ocon a disappointing 14th at home.

Alfa Romeo’s Antonio Giovinazzi was 15th, ahead of a presumably bewildered Leclerc, with Kimi Raikkonen, Nicholas Latifi and the two Haas cars of Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin rounding out the retirement-free field.

Power of Undercut

Due to rain before start of the race, Circuit Paul Ricard surface became more abrasive and caused heavy graining than teams expected. Drivers were very vocal over team radio about their struggles.

Mercedes decided to bring in Bottas first instead of their race leader on Lap 17 for fresh Hard tyre and he almost undercut Max Verstappen for P2 before reacted quickly to bring in the Dutch man on Lap 18 for fresh Hard tyre.

Would the undercut work here, with Hamilton having managed to establish a 3s cushion over the Dutchman? It would. Verstappen put in a blistering out-lap – and with Hamilton called in a lap later, as the Mercedes exited the pits, Verstappen flashed past and back into the net lead.

Hamilton’s engineer Pete Bonnington was straight on the radio to apologise, with Hamilton telling his team exasperatedly: “Come on guys.” The power of the undercut had also put Bottas right on the tail of his team mate, with the Finn’s side of the garage willing on their man, saying: “We’re enjoying this Valtteri.”

Championship Battle

With his Third win of the year, Verstappen extended his advantage over Lewis Hamilton in driver Championship battle up to 12 points. Red Bull increased their advantage in Constructor’s battle to 37 points over rivals Mercedes.

While talking to Skysports F1 after the race The Dutchman said,

“Once we made the first pit stop, then you could clearly see on the hard tyres [the Mercedes] were pushing me hard from behind. But once we made the call to do a two-stopper, luckily at the end that paid off. We had to work hard for it, but of course, very rewarding.

“It was difficult because there were quite a lot of backmarkers to go through. But luckily they all did well and we could have a good fight to the end”