Max Verstappen overtakes Ayrton Senna with yet another dominant race victory
Max Verstappen was once again in a class of his own which saw him take maximum points (he even pitted at the end for fastest lap he was so far ahead) and overtake the great Ayrton Senna for total amount of Formula 1 race victories. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc took home a really positive P2 whilst Sergio Perez recovered from 15th to round out the Podium.
The Biggest Talking Points
The Biggest Talking Point today was the amount of penalties that were dished out for track limits. I believe 9 drivers received at least a 5-second time penalty for going over the white line more than 3 times and some of those drivers included Lewis Hamilton, Carlos Sainz, and Pierre Gasly. Lewis Hamilton had a particularly tough day for Mercedes as he struggled for pace throughout and Toto Wolff had to come over the radio a few times to calm down his star driver. Elsewhere, Ferrari didn’t allow Carlos Sainz to overtake his teammate early on in the race and that probably cost Sainz a spot on the Podium as he was forced to double stack behind his teammate during the Virtual Safety Car. Speaking of the VSC, Aston Martin completely screwed over Lance Stroll who went from running in P7 all the way down to P15. Nico Hulkenberg suffered an unfortunate retirement as his engine failed whilst the two McLaren drivers had completely different days (I’ll get to that in a bit). Finally, Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez had a fun battle for a few laps, and the battling definitely cost Perez the opportunity to hunt Leclerc down for P2. Charles did actually lead a few laps, but he was quickly overtaken by Verstappen once the Dutchman caught up.
The Standout Drives in the Race
I’ve given out two 10’s for this race and the first one is obviously for Max Verstappen. Max was so quick and confident that he boxed for Softs to set the fastest lap on the last lap of the race and he still won the Grand Prix. Verstappen literally couldn’t have had a more dominant weekend. The other driver I’ve given out a 10 to is Lando Norris who has had an absolutely brilliant weekend for McLaren. Lando drove a sensible race whilst being quick at the same time and he fully deserved to score big points today (in both my ratings and in the Championship). I also thought Charles Leclerc had a great race to finish P2 today whilst Sergio Perez did a really good job to recover for a Podium.
Drivers who had a Horror Race
In total, I’ve given out three 1’s for today’s race. The first one is for Oscar Piastri who had an absolute stinker in his McLaren. Yes, I’m aware that Oscar was running the old McLaren parts whilst his teammate was running the new parts, but that’s still not an excuse for how slow he was today. Piastri was literally at the back fighting with the backmarkers and that’s not where he should be. Another driver that I wasn’t impressed with was Yuki Tsunoda who didn’t have the pace today and he also picked up 10 seconds worth of penalties for exceeding track limits. This wasn’t a great look for Tsunoda who had been starting to establish himself as one of the better drivers in 2023. The last driver I’ve given out a 1 to is Kevin Magnussen who had yet another really rubbish race. It just seems to me that Magnussen doesn’t have any pace at the moment and it’s a little bit concerning for both him and Guenther Steiner.
Overall Race Results and My Ratings
Max Verstappen: 10
Charles Leclerc: 9
Sergio Perez: 8
Carlos Sainz: 7
Lando Norris: 10
Fernando Alonso: 6
Lewis Hamilton: 5
George Russell: 5
Pierre Gasly: 7
Lance Stroll: 5
Alex Albon: 7
Esteban Ocon: 4
Logan Sargeant: 6
Zhou Guanyu: 5
Nyck de Vries: 4
Valtteri Bottas: 3
Oscar Piastri: 1
Yuki Tsunoda: 1
Kevin Magnussen: 1
Nico Hulkenberg: -
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