The Portuguese Grand Prix was decided by teams’ understanding of tyres – and their ability to execute a one-stop strategy in the best way.
Red Bull said their relative pace to Mercedes was down to not being able to get the medium tyres working in the same way. That was reflected by Max Verstappen overtake on Valtteri Bottas at the start of the second, hard tyre, stint.
Mercedes had problems with their pit stops in several recent races, notably the 11-second stop for Bottas in Bahrain which ruined his race. Today again they gave away around half a second to their rivals at their first (for Hamilton, only) stops.The time Bottas lost put him out of the pits close enough to Verstappen to be vulnerable to the Red Bull, with his warmer tyres. Although the sensor problems he later encountered might have relegated him to third place anyway, the time lost in the pit stop certainly played a part.
McLaren and Lando Norris again showed impressive tyre management to finish ‘best of the rest’ behind the Mercedes and Red Bull drivers. Norris took advantage of starting on soft tyres to move up the order, briefly taking fourth from Sergio Perez and able to build a reasonable lead over the rest of the field, then looked after medium tyres for 44 laps.
Carlos Sainz Jnr, who had pitted one lap earlier than Norris, found that Ferrari were having much bigger problems with the medium tyres. Although he initially fought with Norris and was able to hold sixth place, by the final few laps his car seemed like a sitting duck, pushed out of the points by being overtaken by both Alpine drivers, Daniel Ricciardo and Pierre Gasly.
Aston Martin and Lance Stroll attempted a curious strategy. Stroll qualified poorly, starting 17th, and chose to start on a fresh set of soft tyres, presumably to help him move up the order early in the race. He ran an enormous 39 laps on those tyres – over half the race distance – before switching to mediums for a shorter stint to the end and a 14th-place finish.
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2021 Portuguese Grand Prix lap chart
The positions of each driver on every lap. Click name to highlight, right-click to reset. Toggle drivers using controls below:
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2021 Portuguese Grand Prix race chart
The gaps between each driver on every lap compared to the leader’s average lap time. Very large gaps omitted. Scroll to zoom, drag to pan and right-click to reset. Toggle drivers using controls below:
Position change
| Driver | Start position | Lap one position change | Race position change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lewis Hamilton | 2 | 0 | 1 |
| Valtteri Bottas | 1 | 0 | -2 |
| Max Verstappen | 3 | 0 | 1 |
| Sergio Perez | 4 | -1 | 0 |
| Lando Norris | 7 | 1 | 2 |
| Daniel Ricciardo | 16 | 2 | 7 |
| Lance Stroll | 17 | 0 | 3 |
| Sebastian Vettel | 10 | 0 | -3 |
| Esteban Ocon | 6 | -1 | -1 |
| Fernando Alonso | 13 | -2 | 5 |
| Charles Leclerc | 8 | 0 | 2 |
| Carlos Sainz Jnr | 5 | 1 | -6 |
| Pierre Gasly | 9 | 0 | -1 |
| Yuki Tsunoda | 14 | -2 | -1 |
| Kimi Raikkonen | 15 | 2 | |
| Antonio Giovinazzi | 12 | 0 | 0 |
| Mick Schumacher | 19 | 0 | 2 |
| Nikita Mazepin | 20 | 0 | 1 |
| George Russell | 11 | 0 | -5 |
| Nicholas Latifi | 18 | 0 | 0 |
2021 Portuguese Grand Prix lap times
All the lap times by the drivers (in seconds, very slow laps excluded). Scroll to zoom, drag to pan and toggle drivers using the control below:
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2021 Portuguese Grand Prix fastest laps
Each driver’s fastest lap:
| Rank | Driver | Car | Fastest lap | Gap | On lap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull-Honda | 1’19.849 | 66 | |
| 2 | Valtteri Bottas | Mercedes | 1’19.865 | 0.016 | 65 |
| 3 | Sergio Perez | Red Bull-Honda | 1’20.643 | 0.794 | 55 |
| 4 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 1’20.933 | 1.084 | 47 |
| 5 | Fernando Alonso | Alpine-Renault | 1’21.032 | 1.183 | 66 |
| 6 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | 1’21.496 | 1.647 | 63 |
| 7 | Lando Norris | McLaren-Mercedes | 1’21.696 | 1.847 | 55 |
| 8 | Esteban Ocon | Alpine-Renault | 1’21.886 | 2.037 | 34 |
| 9 | Lance Stroll | Aston Martin-Mercedes | 1’21.970 | 2.121 | 59 |
| 10 | Daniel Ricciardo | McLaren-Mercedes | 1’21.987 | 2.138 | 64 |
| 11 | Pierre Gasly | AlphaTauri-Honda | 1’22.014 | 2.165 | 65 |
| 12 | Yuki Tsunoda | AlphaTauri-Honda | 1’22.058 | 2.209 | 61 |
| 13 | Antonio Giovinazzi | Alfa Romeo-Ferrari | 1’22.167 | 2.318 | 60 |
| 14 | Carlos Sainz Jnr | Ferrari | 1’22.325 | 2.476 | 60 |
| 15 | Sebastian Vettel | Aston Martin-Mercedes | 1’22.416 | 2.567 | 60 |
| 16 | George Russell | Williams-Mercedes | 1’22.654 | 2.805 | 60 |
| 17 | Mick Schumacher | Haas-Ferrari | 1’22.755 | 2.906 | 61 |
| 18 | Nicholas Latifi | Williams-Mercedes | 1’23.155 | 3.306 | 60 |
| 19 | Nikita Mazepin | Haas-Ferrari | 1’23.641 | 3.792 | 64 |
| 20 | Kimi Raikkonen | Alfa Romeo-Ferrari | 1’33.673 | 13.824 | 1 |
Verstappen’s fastest lap time was deleted because he exceeded track limits at turn 14. Bottas therefore scored the bonus point for fastest lap.
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2021 Portuguese Grand Prix tyre strategies
The tyre strategies for each driver:
| Stint 1 | Stint 2 | Stint 3 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lewis Hamilton | C2 (37) | C1 (29) | |
| Max Verstappen | C2 (35) | C1 (29) | C3 (2) |
| Valtteri Bottas | C2 (36) | C1 (27) | C3 (3) |
| Sergio Perez | C2 (51) | C3 (15) | |
| Lando Norris | C3 (22) | C2 (44) | |
| Charles Leclerc | C2 (25) | C1 (41) | |
| Esteban Ocon | C3 (22) | C1 (44) | |
| Fernando Alonso | C2 (40) | C1 (26) | |
| Daniel Ricciardo | C2 (41) | C1 (25) | |
| Pierre Gasly | C3 (24) | C2 (42) | |
| Carlos Sainz Jnr | C3 (21) | C2 (45) | |
| Antonio Giovinazzi | C2 (22) | C1 (43) | |
| Sebastian Vettel | C3 (22) | C2 (43) | |
| Lance Stroll | C3 (39) | C2 (26) | |
| Yuki Tsunoda | C2 (21) | C1 (44) | |
| George Russell | C2 (28) | C1 (37) | |
| Mick Schumacher | C2 (32) | C1 (32) | |
| Nicholas Latifi | C2 (24) | C1 (40) | |
| Nikita Mazepin | C2 (31) | C1 (12) | C3 (21) |
| Kimi Raikkonen | C3 (1) |
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2021 Portuguese Grand Prix pit stop times
How long each driver’s pit stops took:
| Driver | Team | Pit stop time | Gap | On lap | |
| 1 | Carlos Sainz Jnr | Ferrari | 25.892 | 21 | |
| 2 | Lance Stroll | Aston Martin | 26.027 | 0.135 | 39 |
| 3 | Pierre Gasly | AlphaTauri | 26.172 | 0.280 | 24 |
| 4 | Yuki Tsunoda | AlphaTauri | 26.202 | 0.310 | 21 |
| 5 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull | 26.319 | 0.427 | 64 |
| 6 | Fernando Alonso | Alpine | 26.442 | 0.550 | 40 |
| 7 | Valtteri Bottas | Mercedes | 26.573 | 0.681 | 63 |
| 8 | Nicholas Latifi | Williams | 26.595 | 0.703 | 24 |
| 9 | Sergio Perez | Red Bull | 26.607 | 0.715 | 51 |
| 10 | Sebastian Vettel | Aston Martin | 26.620 | 0.728 | 22 |
| 11 | Antonio Giovinazzi | Alfa Romeo | 26.729 | 0.837 | 22 |
| 12 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull | 26.743 | 0.851 | 35 |
| 13 | George Russell | Williams | 26.843 | 0.951 | 28 |
| 14 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 26.907 | 1.015 | 37 |
| 15 | Valtteri Bottas | Mercedes | 26.938 | 1.046 | 36 |
| 16 | Lando Norris | McLaren | 26.952 | 1.060 | 22 |
| 17 | Nikita Mazepin | Haas | 26.984 | 1.092 | 43 |
| 18 | Esteban Ocon | Alpine | 27.033 | 1.141 | 22 |
| 19 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | 27.082 | 1.190 | 25 |
| 20 | Nikita Mazepin | Haas | 27.186 | 1.294 | 31 |
| 21 | Mick Schumacher | Haas | 27.245 | 1.353 | 32 |
| 22 | Daniel Ricciardo | McLaren | 28.639 | 2.747 | 41 |
2021 Portuguese Grand Prix
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Adunlucas
2nd May 2021, 21:00
A pity it doesn’t show how many laps LW and VB’s tyres had before they put it. I think that even if VB had stopped at same time that MV, latter’s tyres would be better for some 2-3 laps because they were new, and they tend to have better performance on the first laps.
I sometimes wonder how different would be with refueling.
sumedh
3rd May 2021, 7:51
They need to increase the pit lane speed limit here. The pit-stop penalty on this track is almost 25-odd seconds. That is at least 5 seconds higher than most other tracks and reduces strategic variation.
If speed limit is increased, at least this penalty will reduce.