BOTTAS WINS TRICKY TURKISH GP

Valtteri Bottas has claimed his first win of the year, making the most of the tricky wet conditions in the Turkish Grand Prix.

The Mercedes driver took full advantage of starting from pole position at Istanbul Park to lead the field through the first turn.

The damp track saw the entire field start the race on intermediate tyres with the conditions slowly improving throughout the race, but persistent light rain ensured that it was never dry enough to switch over to slicks.

From there, Bottas controlled the race and was never really properly challenged on his way to victory. Only ever losing the lead during the pit stop cycle.

Second place for Max Verstappen was enough for the Red Bull driver to reclaim the championship lead. The Dutchman was never really able to close the gap to Bottas but wasn’t ever challenged either.

The battle for third place was where the action was. Red Bull’s Sergio Perez claimed the final spot on the podium after sneaking past Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc with just six laps left to run.

Perez had his work cut out for him the entire race holding off a challenge from Lewis Hamilton on Lap 35 before fighting hard with Leclerc and the end.

An alternate strategy for Leclerc saw him lead the race briefly. The Monegasque driver held a 5-second margin at one point while the rest of the field stopped.

However, rapidly losing time to those fresh intermediate tyres, Ferrari eventually elected to stop Leclerc on Lap 48 dropping him down to third.

Fifth was the best that Hamilton could achieve after making his way up from 11th on the grid. The Mercedes driver did eventually get in front of Perez but a late pit stop saw him drop back down the order.

AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly claimed sixth despite earning a 5-second penalty for contact with Fernando Alonso on the opening lap.

McLaren’s Lando Norris claimed seventh ahead of Carlos Sainz (Ferrari), Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) and Esteban Ocon (Alpine).

Ocon managed to complete the entire race without a single pit stop, using one set of intermediate tyres for the full duration.

Both Alfa Romeo’s finished just outside the points with Antonio Giovinazzi just ahead of Kimi Raikkonen.

Daniel Ricciardo could only make his way up to 13th after being relegated to the rear of the grid following an engine penalty.

McLaren opted to take advantage of the Australian’s poor result in qualifying to take a new power unit to add an extra engine to their bank for the remainder of the season.

Ricciardo’s race was further compromised when he was the first to switch to a fresh set of intermediate tyres early in the race taking him out of sequence.

Yuki Tsunoda (AlphaTauri) ended up 14th just ahead of George Russell (Williams) and Alonso who struggled to regain positions after being turned around at the first corner.

Nicholas Latifi (Williams) ended 17th just ahead of Sebastian Vettel (Aston Martin) who was the only driver to gamble on slick tyres but lost significant time in doing so.

While Haas rounded out the field with Mick Schumacher ahead of Nikita Mazepin.

Verstappen now holds a 6 point advantage over Hamilton in the championship standings with six rounds remaining.

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