HAMILTON WINS CRASH FILLED TUSCAN GP

Lewis Hamilton wins crash filled Tuscan Grand Prix – Photo: LAT

Lewis Hamilton has taken victory in a crash-filled inaugural Tuscan Grand Prix at the Mugello Circuit, after two red flag stoppages.

By DAN McCARTHY

Pole-sitter Hamilton lost the lead at the start of the race but after an early red flag he was able to retake first place on the lap 8 restart.

Valtteri Bottas gave his all throughout but he was unable to regain the lead, finishing 4.880s behind Hamilton.

Australian Daniel Ricciardo was tantalisingly close to taking his first podium for Renault, before being overhauled by Red Bull Racing driver Alex Albon with just eight laps to go.

Albon remained ahead until the chequered flag fell to take his maiden F1 podium, but had to work for it.

The Thai driver dropped down to fifth behind Sergio Perez on the final restart with just twelve laps remaining. However, he dug deep after passing Perez he quickly caught and overhauled Ricciardo.

The race will be remembered for several large incidents, two of which resulted in the deployment of a red flag and a race suspension.

The first incident on the opening lap saw Verstappen limping with a major electrical issue innocently pushed into the gravel after Kimi Raikkonen, Romain Grosjean and Pierre Gasly collided behind.

Both Gasly and Verstappens races ended at Turn 2 while the others continued unscathed, but a safety car was deployed to recover the stranded vehicles.

On the restart after the safety car returned to the lane drivers at the back of the grid went early and blindly ran into the back of multiple other cars.

It was a frightening multi car crash that could have been a lot worse, fortunately, Antonio Giovinazzi, Carlos Sainz, Kevin Magnussen and Nicholas Latifi escaped uninjured, but their machines were not in such good condition.

This resulted in the first red flag and was followed by another late in the race when Lance Stroll’s Racing Point suffered a tyre failure at Arrabbiata 2 flinging the machine at high speed into the tyre wall, again the Canadian fortunately hopped out the car unscathed.

The other Racing Point driver Perez crossed the line in fifth ahead of quiet achiever Lando Norris and Daniil Kvyat.

In its 1000th F1 race Ferrari could not have struggled anymore, after a great start Charles Leclerc the Monegasque driver sat in third but tumbled down the order to be classified in eighth position, while his Sebastian Vettel was lucky to hold on to 10th.

Former Ferrari world champion Raikkonen finished the race in eighth but was handed a 5s penalty for an illegal pit entry dropping him to ninth.

Williams driver George Russell sat in a comfortable ninth until the final red flag was thrown, the Briton made a bad restart and finished the race in 11th ahead of the final finisher Romain Grosjean.

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