F1 2020: Max Verstappen wins Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

 An imperious display from Max Verstappen saw him breeze to his second victory of 2020 at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix season finale, leading home the Mercedes duo of Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton, who had no answer to the Red Bull’s pace around the Yas Marina Circuit.

With Mercedes having taken every pole and race win in Abu Dhabi since 2014, Verstappen reversed that trend with pole on Saturday, before converting it with a dominant performance under the floodlights, as he led home Bottas by 15 seconds, with Hamilton coming home just behind his teammate on his first race back since contracting Covid-19.

Verstappen’s teammate Alex Albon supported Red Bull’s cause by coming home P4, although having lacked the pace to really challenge the Mercedes in front of him. Meanwhile, in a fantastic evening for McLaren, Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz finished P5 and P6 to claim third in the constructors’, leap-frogging Racing Point who scored just one point.

That was partly due to Sergio Perez retiring with a suspected transmission issue on Lap 10 of the race, an unfortunate end to the Racing Point career of last week’s race winner. Daniel Ricciardo came home seventh on his final outing for Renault, ahead of the AlphaTauri of Pierre Gasly, while behind Esteban Ocon, Lance Stroll took the final points-paying position in P10 having been passed on the final lap, Ocon cementing Renault’s fifth in the constructors’.

Meanwhile, on his final race for Ferrari, Sebastian Vettel finished P14, behind teammate Charles Leclerc, while in what looks to be his last race in F1, Kevin Magnussen finished P18 for Haas. But as a dominant season for Mercedes draws to a close, it’s Verstappen with the advantage heading into the winter, after a fantastic race for the Dutchman - and at the end of a fast and furious 2020.

F1 2020: Lewis Hamilton wins Belgium Grand Prix

Mercedes Lewis Hamilton swept to his fourth victory at the Belgium Grand Prix, leading home his teammate Valtteri Bottas as Red Bull’s Max Verstappen took third to maintain his record of finishing on the podium at every race he’s been classified in this year.

Following his dominant pole on Saturday, Hamilton resisted the first lap slipstreaming contest down to Les Combes to hold onto the lead, before retaining it for all 44 laps to close out his fifth victory out of seven races this year. Bottas came home around eight seconds behind his teammate, with Verstappen a further seven seconds down the road.

Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo led home the team’s best finish of the year in fourth, crossing the line under four seconds behind Verstappen after some rapid final laps, with Esteban Ocon overtaking the Red Bull of Alex Albon on the final tour to take fifth, Albon just holding onto sixth from the McLaren of Lando Norris.

An impressive drive from Pierre Gasly saw him take eighth for AlphaTauri, while the final points were taken by the Racing Point pair of Lance Stroll and Sergio Perez in P9 and P10 – with the Ferrari drivers Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc finishing out of the points in P13 and P14 respectively. Meanwhile, Hamilton’s fourth Belgian Grand Prix win sees him draw equal with Jim Clark and Kimi Raikkonen on third in the all-time list for Spa victories, behind Michael Schumacher and Ayrton Senna.

F1 2020: Lewis Hamilton wins Spanish Grand Prix

Mercedes Lewis Hamilton executed a near-perfect race at the Spanish Grand Prix, leading every lap from pole to record his fifth Spanish Grand Prix win, his fourth victory of the season, with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen coming home ahead of the sister Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas.

The seeds of Hamilton’s victory were sown by a strong start for him, as Bottas dropped from P2 to P4 off the line, before eventually recovering to third, while Verstappen jumped to second at the getaway, but ultimately wasn’t able to make any in-roads into Hamilton’s lead, as he finished 24s adrift.

Racing Point’s Sergio Perez crossed the line in fourth but dropped to fifth thanks to a five-second penalty for ignoring blue flags, allowing Lance Stroll to claim P4. Perez eventually slotted into fifth, ahead of the McLaren of Carlos Sainz – who maintained his 100% record of finishing in the points at his home race – and the Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel, who benefitted from a late decision to switch him onto a one-stop strategy to come home in seventh.

 

He finished ahead of the second Red Bull of Alex Albon, the Thai driver hurt by having had to switch early to a set of hards, while the AlphaTauri of Pierre Gasly and the second McLaren of Lando Norris rounded out the top 10 – the expected strong race pace from Renault having failed to materialize on race day, as Daniel Ricciardo wound up 11th, with Esteban Ocon 13^th.

F1 2020: Max Verstappen wins 70th Anniversary Grand Prix

Max Verstappen has become the first non-Mercedes driver to win a race in 2020, the Red Bull racer winning out in the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix from the Mercedes pairing of Lewis Hamilton and polesitter Valtteri Bottas after an incredible display at Silverstone.

 

Verstappen had been the only driver in the top 10 to begin the race on the hard tyres. And after starting P4 – which became P3 by Turn 1, after he quickly passed the Racing Point of Nico Hulkenberg – he managed his pace brilliantly throughout the race, pressuring the Mercedes early on before taking the lead from Bottas with a brilliant move around Luffield, before racing to the finish for his first victory since Brazil last year – and Red Bull’s first at Silverstone since 2012.

Hamilton enjoyed a late-race surge, passing his teammate with two laps to go into Brooklands to claim second place – equalling the number of podium finishes of Michael Schumacher in the process – while it was the second time in three years that Bottas has failed to convert a Silverstone pole into a win, as he came home third.

 

Charles Leclerc was another driver to manage his tyres well, making a one-stop work to claim a fine P4, while teammate Sebastian Vettel could only manage P12, having spun on his own at the first corner of the race. Alex Albon took fifth for the second Red Bull, passing the Racing Point of Lance Stroll with a lap to go, Stroll ending up P6 ahead of stand-in teammate Nico Hulkenberg, who stopped late on for soft tyres.

 

Rounding out the top 10, Esteban Ocon was P8, ahead of the McLaren of Lando Norris and the AlphaTauri of Daniil Kvyat, who despite his lower starting position, finished one spot ahead of teammate Pierre Gasly to take his second point of the season.

F1 2020: Lewis Hamilton wins British Grand Prix

An incredible final few laps of the 2020 British Grand Prix Lewis Hamilton claim the seventh and possibly most dramatic Silverstone win of his career, despite his left-front tyre letting go with half a lap still to go.

 

Hamilton and teammate Valtteri Bottas had been formation flying for 50 of the 52 laps at Silverstone until tyre drama struck. Second-placed man Bottas was the first to suffer as his tyre deflated on Lap 50, costing him second place, before, on the very last lap, Hamilton suffered his own issue.

However, with Max Verstappen having opted to pit a few laps from the end to try and claim the fastest lap, Hamilton had enough time in hand to just cross the line first, five seconds ahead of Verstappen and the third-placed Ferrari of Charles Leclerc. McLaren’s Carlos Sainz had been set to finish fourth, but his own last lap tyre issue saw him eventually come home P13, allowing Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo to claim fourth, following a late pass on the sister McLaren of Lando Norris.

 

Renault’s Esteban Ocon finished sixth, having enjoyed a race-long battle with the Racing Point of Lance Stroll, with Pierre Gasly having enjoyed a fine race to finish seventh for AlphaTauri. Alex Albon finished eighth for Red Bull, having recovered from a Lap 1 tussle with the Haas of Kevin Magnussen that saw him fall to last, while Lance Stroll and Sebastian Vettel rounded out the top 10, Vettel holding off a late charge form the recovering Mercedes of Bottas.

F1 2020: Lewis Hamilton wins Hungary Grand Prix

Mercedes Lewis Hamilton enjoyed a peerless run to his eighth Hungarian Grand Prix victory, winning out over the Red Bull of Max Verstappen, as he tied with Michael Schumacher’s record for the most number of wins at a single venue.

 

Starting from pole, Hamilton quickly surged into a comfortable lead in the early laps, before managing his pace over his rivals in the encounter at the Hungaroring, eventually taking the flag 8.7s ahead of Verstappen to seal his third win in a row at this race.

 

Verstappen himself overcame a poor qualifying that saw him start P7, and then an embarrassing crash into the Turn 12 wall on his lap to the grid that required some urgent repairs, to claim P2, the Dutchman holding off an attack by third-place Valtteri Bottas in the final stages of the race.

Racing Point’s Lance Stroll couldn’t convert his P3 grid position into the team’s first podium of the year as he came home a distant fourth. A late pass from Red Bull’s Alex Albon on the Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel gave Albon – who started 13th – P5, although Red Bull was summoned to the stewards after the race for allegedly drying Albon’s grid spot ahead of the race start. Vettel held off the second Racing Point of Sergio Perez in the final laps of the race, as the Mexican finished seventh, having started fourth, while Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo made a monster 42-lap stint on mediums work to take eighth.

 

With the track greasy ahead of the race start but the rain had stopped falling, an inspired strategy from Haas helped Kevin Magnussen take the team’s first points of the year, with Magnussen and Romain Grosjean pitting for slicks at the end of the formation lap as their rivals started on intermediates on the drying track, with the Dane eventually taking P9 after a fine race. McLaren’s Carlos Sainz rounded out the top 10, thanks to a late-race pass on the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc, who ended up 11th.

F1 2019: Lewis Hamilton won Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

As the curtain came down on the 2019 Formula 1 season, Lewis Hamilton enjoyed a silky smooth evening beneath the floodlights at Abu Dhabi to record his 11th win of the season, ahead of the Red Bull of Max Verstappen and the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc.

Hamilton’s 50th pole-to-win of his career was arguably his most straightforward victory this season, as he comfortably eased away in the early part of the race before enjoying an untroubled run to the flag, to maintain Mercedes’ 100% win record at Yas Marina since 2014. It also meant that Hamilton tied his hero Ayrton Senna’s record for the 19th lights-to-flag victory of his career.

Behind the podium trio, Valtteri Bottas recovered from a back-of-the-grid start to end up fourth, less than a second behind Leclerc. A penultimate lap pass by Sebastian Vettel on Alex Albon gave the Ferrari driver fifth, while a fascinating last-lap scrap between Lando Norris and Sergio Perez saw Perez ultimately come out on top to claim ‘best of the rest’ in P7, ahead of Norris.

Daniil Kvyat was ninth for Toro Rosso, while Carlos Sainz also made a last lap pass, on Renault's Daniel Ricciardo, to take a point for P10 - enough to see him claim sixth in the drivers’ standings for 2019.

F1 2019: Max Verstappen wins Brazil Grand Prix

Max Verstappen delivered a dominant performance to win for a second time this year, finishing ahead of Toro Rosso’s Pierre Gasly, with Lewis Hamilton taking the flag in third. Hamilton, however, was handed a five-second penalty, dropping him to seventh and promoting McLaren’s Carlos Sainz to third, following a penultimate-lap coming together with Alex Albon.

Hamilton’s collision with Albon encapsulated the frenetic nature of a race effectively deemed a dead rubber after the he had sewn up his sixth world championship in Texas a fortnight ago. Yet, despite Verstappen’s masterclass – the Dutchman proving again why some regard him as the best driver on the grid – and Hamilton’s banzai move on Albon, which cruelly denied him his first career podium, the penultimate round of the 2019 campaign might yet be remembered as the straw that broke the camel’s back at Ferrari.

The tension has been simmering between their two drivers – the four-times world champion Vettel and emerging talent, Leclerc – since the opening round of the campaign in Melbourne eight months’ ago. Here, at one of the iconic venues on the grand prix calendar, it sensationally boiled over.

Leclerc, having started 14th following a grid penalty, was battling Vettel for fourth with five laps to go. He dived underneath Vettel at the Senna Esses and made the pass stick. It was a perfect move. Leclerc held off Vettel as they emerged from the third corner, but on the run down to the ensuing bend, Vettel latched on to Leclerc’s tow before drawing alongside his team-mate, and then subtly moving across him.

Vettel’s left-rear tyre made contact with Leclerc’s right-front, and in a flurry of sparks and broken carbon fibre, both Ferraris were out of the race. The contact was gentle, but the result devastating.