#PORTUGAL F1 2021 SETUP DRIVERS#

It could have swung things, and Bottas would not be popular in the Mercedes garage if it had.ДЄmong the back of the field, RaikkonenвЂ™s single-stop race did let him gain five places, if a 12th-place finish still left him unrewarded. While that proved academic in the end, it needs to be considered in light of the fact both Mercedes and Red Bull expected Hamilton wouldnвЂ™t catch Verstappen until the final laps. Comparatively, however, Bottas was slower than Hamilton and his reluctance to move over for his team mate, forcing Hamilton to fight him for the overtake, cost Hamilton a substantial chunk of lap time, easily over a second. Verstappen was correct that, overall, HamiltonвЂ™s pace was superior to his. But he wasnвЂ™t able to make any real good of AlpineвЂ™s hugely improved qualifying pace, sliding from fifth to ninth at the flag. His only alternative was to go onto the unfancied hards, which performed dreadfully in this race last year and were avoided by the entire field this afternoon.Д®steban Ocon, meanwhile, was able to hold on in the points, unlike team mate Alonso. Kimi Raikkonen was the only person to start on medium tyres and despite holding on to a position in the top 10 once faster cars had made their pit stops, was moved onto soft tyres mid-race.

#PORTUGAL F1 2021 SETUP DRIVERS#

Only two drivers ran a one-stop race and it didnвЂ™t seem to work out for either of them. But they accepted the inevitable far too late, and his stop on lap 61 (a lap later than VerstappenвЂ™s) was an act of desperation that did nothing to get Alonso back into the points positions. In that sense, Red Bull played out the best strategy they could have on Sunday by accepting the loss of the win to Hamilton and moving Verstappen onto a late stop to go for the fastest lap point.ДЄlpine seemed to attempt something similar with Fernando Alonso. MercedesвЂ™ sleight-of-hand with Lewis Hamilton, keeping him out longer on his initial set of soft tyres (only Charles Leclerc equalled his 28-lap opening stint) didnвЂ™t show their strategy until it was too late for Red Bull to respond.ДЄdditionally, Max Verstappen only had soft tyres to be moved onto, in his second stop. Most of the front-running cars had not saved a second set of medium tyres, with only Mercedes and the backmarker teams having any additional medium sets for the race.ДЄ pit stop at Barcelona costs about 21 seconds and so early assumptions were that, with Pirelli having again brought the hardest compound tyres to this race, a one-stop strategy would be beneficial. And by вЂearlyвЂ™, that meant Saturday at the latest. Teams which worked out early on that the race was heading towards a two-stop strategy had a substantial advantage. But that alone wouldnвЂ™t have done the job for the win, as Mercedes had both a tyre and pace advantage over Red Bull.

The Spanish Grand Prix was won through pit stop strategy.

Portugal f1 2021 setup