Official F1 Journal Formula 1 Grand Prix Round Up-

Before the race began Stake F1 Team announced Zhou would be starting from the pitlane after he damaged his front and rear wing in qualifying, requiring them to be replaced with other components that were not the same and Hamilton was questioning his choice to start on the Soft tyres in such hot weather. 
As the lights went out Verstappen got a good start keeping 1st out of turn 1. Charles Leclerc was straight on the back of Norris but by turn 3 it was the sister Mclaren of Piastri who was closest to the Ferrari, right up behind him in 5th. Hamilton gained a place off the start and was up to 10th, Alonso struggled off the start on his Hard tyres and Russell passed Perez on the straight up to turn 5. 
Verstappen started to pull away from Sainz stretching his lead to almost a second at the end of the first lap as Stroll passed Tsunoda for 8th. 
Lap 2 Sainz had destroyed the gap Verstappen had created and he passed the reigning World Champion into turn 9 but things went from bad to worse for Verstappen when on lap 3 smoke began to bellow from the rear of his car and the area around his rear right tyre was on fire. For the first time since this race in 2022 Max Verstappen retired, with the rear of his car falling apart as he drove back to the pits. Norris was now up to 2nd, Leclerc 3rd and Piastri & Russell 4th & 5th. All of whom had every chance of taking the fight to Sainz in 1st to claim the win for themselves.

Lap 5 Perez was starting gain rapidly on George Russell in 5th. Alonso was still struggling down in 11th on his Hard rubber.
Albon was the first pit on lap 7, followed by Hamilton on lap 8 both putting the Hard tyres on the car. Leclerc and Piastri had made their way up to the back of Norris as Russell was the next man to swap his medium tyres for Hards in his first stop.
Lap 9 Leclerc and Piastri pit to cover off Russell, with the undercut being very powerful at Albert Park. Gasly was having a great race, up to 5th and had a great battle with the HAAS of Hulkenberg for 4th. 
Lap 11 we saw Hamilton off onto the grass at turn 1 as Leclerc and Piastri made their way past Hulkenberg and Gasly's battle trying to use their fresh rubber to under cut Norris for 2nd. 
Perez was on the radio to the team to say he thought he had 'over cooker his tyres' trying to make a big enough gap to Russell to pit and come out ahead.  

Lap 15 Norris pit for Hard tyres with Perez doing the same behind him, sadly for Norris both Leclerc and Piastri jumped him, taking him from 2nd to 5th. Perez was equally as unlucky and came out back behind Russell and Stroll in 10th. 
Lap 17 it was Lewis Hamilton's turn to have car issues with him being forced to retire after an engine failure on his Mercedes car. He did his best to park the car in the best place for the racing to continue and he did a great job with only a Virtual Safety car being required to clear his car. Alonso, Hulkenberg and Gasly took advantage of the other cars driving to a delta and pit during the Virtual safety car 

Lap 20 running started to settle down as the drivers went in to tyre management mode till Perez finally passed Russell for 6th and was then off to catch Alonso ahead in 5th on the hard tyres he started the race on. 
Lap 24 Sainz has a 2.9 second lead over his team mate Leclerc who had Piastri 2 seconds behind him as the HAAS cars swapped places to allow a faster Hulkenberg to hunt down Alex Albon in the only Williams car running today. 
Lap 27 Perez had caught Alonso in 5th who was yet to stop and he made short work of the Aston Martin car passing him on lap 27, when he passed Alonso he had a 12 second gap to the Mclaren of Norris who was gaining on his team mate and was within DRS until the team radioed Piastri to ask him to swap positions  as Norris was much faster at that stage of the Grand Prix. 

Lap 30 Albon made his 2nd stop, again being the first to stop putting the hard tyre on and rejoining in 15th, Ricciardo followed him in on the next lap also putting the Hard rubber on. Leclerc was on the radio on lap 32 to say his tyre (was) gone in the hope the team would pit him as soon as possible and they did just that on lap  36 bringing him back out into the path of Alonso and Perez still fighting over 5th position. As soon as he was in clear air he started to pump in fastest laps every lap. 
The Mclaren pit one lap after the other with Piastri the first to swap his old tyres for new ones and rejoining in 8th and Norris managing to get back out in 3rd.
When Sainz finally pit on lap 42 he had an almost 29 second lead over Leclerc in 2nd giving him more than enough time to make his pit stop and return to the lead without losing a place to the pursuing cars. Alonso also stopped on the same lap and was released into 7th as there was talk of Russell attempting a 1 stop race on his hard tyre. 

Lap 46 Russell gave in and pit for fresh tyres and came back out behind Alonso in 7th. In typical Alonso style he would not prove easy to pass. 
Lap 50 Norris began to close the gap to Leclerc, trying to catch him to steal 2nd place from the Ferrari driver but it wasn't meant to be and as the lap counted down the top 4 settled into their positions for the rest of the race. 
Alonso was still ahead of Russell in 7th but the Mercedes man never dropped out of the DRS range of the Aston Martin and the 2 had a great battle as the race drew to an end till on the last lap Alonso seemed to slow down intentionally in the middle of turn 5, Russell reacted to closing on Alonso so fast and ended up in the barrier of turn 6 and flung across the track with the car coming to rest on its side. The crash brought out a virtual safety car that the race ended under. The incident was immediately under investigation as Alonso continued on to finish 6th. After the race the stewards would announce that they argeed with Russell and the " time World Champion was guilty of dangerous driving and deserving of a drive through penalty. In the absence of any opportunity to serve the penalty, they converted it to a 20 second time penalty added to Alonso's rac time, dropping him from 6th to 8th.
Sainz did a mega job to not just catch and pass Verstappen before he retired but managed his tyres and the race beautifully to bring his Ferrari home in 1st just 15 days after his appendics surgery in Saudi Arabia. It was also a great day for Sainz's team mate Leclerc but over the radio you could hear the disappointment in his voice that he was the 2 in the Ferrari 1-2. The Mclaren drivers also had a great day scoring well on a day that the 2 Mercedes didn't finish and the Aston Martins couldn't manage better than 6th. Meaning the Woking based team took 3rd from Mercedes in the Constructors Championship. 

Race Result 

1 SAI                   2 LEC +2.366
3 NOR +5.904     4 PIA +35.770
5 PER +56.309    6 ALO +80.992
7 STR +93.222    8 TSU +35.601
9 HUL +104.553  10 MAG + 1 lap
11 ALB +1 lap      12 RIC +1 lap 
​13 GAS +1 lap     14 BOT +1 lap
15 ZHO +1 lap      16 OCO +1 lap 
17 RUS DNF         18 HAM DNF
19 VER DNF 

On to Suzuka.............


Joanna Blackmore
​Writer @f1journal.co.uk