Start, Autodromo do Algarve, 2021

Vote for your 2021 Portuguese Grand Prix Driver of the Weekend

2021 Portuguese Grand Prix

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Which Formula 1 driver made the most of the Portuguese Grand Prix weekend?

It’s time to give your verdict on which driver did the best with the equipment at their disposal over the last three days.

Review how each driver got on below and vote for who impressed you the most at Autodromo do Algarve.

Driver performance summary

DriverStartedGap to team mate (Q)Laps leading team matePit stopsFinishedGap to team mate (R)
Lewis Hamilton2nd+0.007s47/6611st-33.53s
Valtteri Bottas1st-0.007s19/6623rd+33.53s
Max Verstappen3rd-0.144s51/6622nd-10.587s
Sergio Perez4th+0.144s15/6614th+10.587s
Lando Norris7th-1.045s47/6615th-24s
Daniel Ricciardo16th+1.045s19/6619th+24s
Lance Stroll17th+0.51s23/65114th+0.706s
Sebastian Vettel10th-0.51s42/65113th-0.706s
Esteban Ocon6th-0.87s48/6617th-1.059s
Fernando Alonso13th+0.87s18/6618th+1.059s
Charles Leclerc8th+0.267s35/6616th-23.174s
Carlos Sainz Jnr5th-0.267s31/66111th+23.174s
Pierre Gasly9th-0.411s65/65110thNot on same lap
Yuki Tsunoda14th+0.411s0/65115thNot on same lap
Kimi Raikkonen15th+0.596s0/10
Antonio Giovinazzi12th-0.596s1/1112th
Mick Schumacher19th-0.46s63/64117th-62.503s
Nikita Mazepin20th+0.46s1/64219th+62.503s
George Russell11th-0.488s58/64116thNot on same lap
Nicholas Latifi18th+0.488s6/64118thNot on same lap

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Vote for your driver of the weekend

Which driver do you think did the best job throughout the race weekend?

Who got the most out of their car in qualifying and the race? Who put their team mate in the shade?

Cast your vote below and explain why you chose the driver you picked in the comments.

Who was the best driver of the 2021 Portuguese Grand Prix weekend?

  • No opinion (1%)
  • Nicholas Latifi (0%)
  • George Russell (0%)
  • Nikita Mazepin (2%)
  • Mick Schumacher (8%)
  • Antonio Giovinazzi (0%)
  • Kimi Raikkonen (0%)
  • Yuki Tsunoda (0%)
  • Pierre Gasly (0%)
  • Carlos Sainz Jnr (0%)
  • Charles Leclerc (0%)
  • Fernando Alonso (7%)
  • Esteban Ocon (5%)
  • Sebastian Vettel (0%)
  • Lance Stroll (0%)
  • Daniel Ricciardo (3%)
  • Lando Norris (28%)
  • Sergio Perez (2%)
  • Max Verstappen (2%)
  • Valtteri Bottas (0%)
  • Lewis Hamilton (41%)

Total Voters: 215

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Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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68 comments on “Vote for your 2021 Portuguese Grand Prix Driver of the Weekend”

  1. Hamilton did good, shame for Sainz’s strategy, Ocon did great, Mick made his mark…
    But Norris shone brighter. In fact, he has been impressing me enough since season opening. 3rd overall! Ok, the glorified wingman was unlucky at Imola, but still… impressive.

    1. I would like Lando Norris to replace Hamilton at Mercedes if the English driver decides to leave at the end of the season. The level of Lando has been surprising and seems to me to be superior to Russell.

      1. + 1 I agree. He seems on the evidence we have, more consistent and more mature. I think George is over-hyped.

  2. Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
    2nd May 2021, 21:16

    I’m not actually sure there were any true stand outs for driver of the weekend. Very few really nailed qualifying and the race put together. Hamilton didn’t get pole and had a misjudgement at the restart, but had the pace and won, but i certainly can’t say he put in a weekend performance better than everyone else. Bottas was better in qualifying, but clearly not the race, so he certainly can’t be considered. Verstappen messed up in qualifying and was solid in the race, but not outstanding.

    Russell was great in qualifying but his first stint was bad enough that he got overtaken by latifi after the stops for what is possibly the first time ever? Yes he showed his huge pace advantage after that but he was nowhere compared to saturday.

    Leclerc was great on Sunday, but not good on saturday, and pretty much the opposite for his team mate. Ricciardo and Alonso both under performed massively in qualifying, but looked solid on race day.

    I think the ones I could consider are Ocon, Giovinazzi and Norris. All did a very solid job in qualifying and finished pretty much where their car performance suggests they should. But I don’t think a single driver really stood out this weekend.

    1. Yeah, but the poll isn’t about the driver who had a perfect weekend. It is about who had the BETTER weekend overall when compared to the others.

    2. @thegianthogweed

      But I don’t think a single driver really stood out this weekend

      my feeling too

    3. I gave it to Mick Schumacher for being able to actually race another car in the Haas and overtaking it @thegianthogweed. But I agree with you that there were no clear cut outstanding performances.

      I guess closest came Norris for his qualifying and making hay with the soft tyres and then making the mediums work to the finish. Agree that both Ocon and Giovanazzi had a very respectable weekend as well, both clearly ahead of their teammates and using the performance when it was there.

  3. Ben (@scuderia29)
    2nd May 2021, 21:20

    Considering the gap to his team mate, and for pressuring and overtaking a faster car, I’ll vote for Schumacher

    1. @scuderia29 yes that was good

    2. I voted mazepin. a little bit of motivation, I really didn’t think he was going to be this slow, as soon as he stops spinning he loses all speed.

    3. Is beating Nikita really such a great merit?

  4. This time I went for ‘no opinion’ simply because no one stood out over the weekend.
    DOTD, more than one candidate. HAM, PER, NOR, RIC, and ALO to an extent. PER got the official voting, and I’m okay with it but could’ve equally gone for HAM.
    Choosing is harder than usual on this occasion.

    1. PER got the official voting

      Although he’s currently on 0% with 90 votes cast :o?
      Seriously, why Perez though? He did OK and that’s it as far as I could tell. Even Bottas was better given he got poll, came third and didn’t fade too much.

      1. I think some people manipulated the vote to give DOTD to Mazepin, F1 refused to announce that (thankfully). Perez perhaps was the runner-up when they re-ran the calculations.

  5. Lando Norris was simply outstanding, once again. Seventh in qualifying was actually the thing that let him down slightly, despite his teammate being down in 16th, but in the race he really shone. Passed Esteban Ocon at the start, then lost the position before making a great move to take sixth back. Then passed Sainz and Perez for fourth, which he then lost and ended up in fifth behind the big four. But the thing that impressed me most was his second stint. An early pitstop for medium tyres mirrored that of Pierre Gasly, Carlos Sainz and Sebastian Vettel. But while that seemed like the right thing to do at first, it soon transpired that the hards were the better tyre. Leclerc, Ocon, and later Ricciardo and Alonso all made progress on hard tyres and the drivers on mediums slipped back, with Gasly finishing tenth, Sainz eleventh and Vettel thirteenth. But the one who didn’t drop back was Lando Norris, who put in a textbook drive to finish fifth, best of the rest for the third race in a row. He is having a terrific season, and was my Driver of the Weekend for the second race in a row. Honourable mentions to Ocon, Hamilton and Schumacher.

    1. Very good spot @f1frog. Hadn’t noticed Norris was on the mediums, excellent second stint indeed.

      1. Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
        3rd May 2021, 15:36

        @john-h I do wonder if the tyres didn’t suffer as much as normal though. Stroll for example did 39 laps on the softest tyre. a few under safety car, but still. If he managed it on that compound, perhaps they just didn’t ware like they usually do.

    2. I would like Lando Norris to replace Hamilton at Mercedes if the English driver decides to leave at the end of the season. The level of Lando has been surprising and seems to me to be superior to Russell.

      1. No, I don’t think so. Russell soundly beat Norris to the championship in GP2/F2. Sainz beat Norris soundly over the 2 years together at McLaren. IMO Russell beats Norris 8 times out of 10 and will be much better suited to the Merc. Isn’t Norris now a nerd driver too? Didn’t need sign him early last year as part of the engine deal with Mac? Or did I imagine that happening?

        1. Merc driver! Not nerd driver! Although… if the cap fits….

        2. I don’t think Norris is signed to Mercedes at all @deanr. And while it IS true that Russel convincingly beat the field in GP2, including Norris, that year always seemed to be one where Lando failed to get the most out of the car, while since then in F1 he has gradually developed into a very efficient driver.

          A bit of a shame for Russel that he doesn’t have the opportunity to show more than Saturday heroics in the Williams (and off course that great but disappointing weekend in the Mercedes) since it it hard to gauge his development as a race driver in that car.

          1. Must have smoked too much! I had a vague recollection that Norris HAD signed for Merc.

  6. No idea how Perez got the official vote, and it concerns me that the majority of fans think he was the best driver today. He had a bad start and was stuck behind Norris for a while. When he eventually got past he did a good job to keep a constant gap to the top three, but that doesn’t make him any more impressive than Hamilton, Verstappen and Bottas themselves. Then he was left out far too long, because he had nothing to lose, and eventually finished fourth despite the extra pitstops, although this was mainly because the last stint was just about getting fastest lap (which he didn’t get). Absolutely nothing noteworthy this weekend, unless the award is for most laps driven before pitting (and not even keeping up a competitive pace). It just doesn’t make sense to me that he should get the Driver of the Day.

    1. F1oSaurus (@)
      2nd May 2021, 21:39

      @f1frog I think when the voting started Perez was leading the race. That’s perhaps the level of the majority of the voters that they missed that Perez would drop back down to P4 when he inevitably made his stop?

      Although I also see people claim that driving 50 laps on medium tyres in a useless attempt to hinder Hamilton was somehow a feat worthy of DOTD.

    2. Yes, Perez is not even among my top 5 choice:
      Norris, Hamilton, Schumacher, Alonso and Ocon.

    3. There was a Mazepin action so they stopped the voted and roll back i think Perez was then on top

      Very hard several drivers were good this weekend VER, NOR ALO SCH and Maybe HAM but he got passed on track by VER amdgot beaten by his teammate at Qualify That he made up his los was his car but Bottas got spanked again.

  7. Lando and Mick for me.
    As drivers of the weekend, they are the only two that shone brighter than their teammate both in Quali and the Race.

    Granted, Lewis was only 0.007 off pole, and did perform incredibly during the race. He’d be my third spot.
    Shout out to Alonso in the race too, but poor in quali.
    Max a solid fourth pick. One mistake was all it took for Lewis to capitalise.

  8. Has to be Mick. Consistently defeating Mazespin. Keep his head while being shown blue flags and keeping up with Latifi and would of eventually caught him regardless of his Lafiti’s mistake. I really do think MSC would be scoring points if he was in the alfa seat

    1. Kept his head*

    2. @ashleyxander – beating Mazepin isn’t much of an achievement!

      1. Agreed! But as we all know, your number one task is to beat your team mate and Mick is trouncing Nikita. In a team which is basically custom made for Mazepin, draped in his countries colours, Mick defeating him is an achievement

        1. @ashleyxander I suppose there is the question of how much help Mick is also getting from Ferrari though, given that he is part of their academy – for example, in terms of preparation via simulator training, I believe that Mick does have some advantages there.

          Until late 2019, Haas were relying on renting time at Ferrari’s simulator, but they were planning to switch over to Dallara’s simulator. However, because he is part of Ferrari’s academy, Ferrari have been giving Mick opportunities to practice in their simulator – so, in terms of simulator practice time, Mick seems to be getting additional assistance there.

    3. I think schumacher junior is doing well, blood runs in the family, obviously the schumacher that made the family famous was a really strong driver, hard to measure up to that standard, but let’s not forget there was also ralf schumacher, a decent driver who could be fast on his day and got a handful of wins on a williams, so mick doesn’t necessarily have to emulate michael, may be asking too much, but even just a career like ralf or a little better isn’t any bad, and as things are going I don’t see why he couldn’t do what ralf did, given the opportunity (car).

  9. Many of us have pinned our hopes on Max to lead us out of this Mercedes tyranny, even though he plays fast and loose with track limits. Horner and Marko need to take him round the track on foot, showing him the white lines and bashing him on the head so he doesn’t cross them.

    Next year we may have Norris to carry our hopes, but for this year Max is our only knight on a white charger and we must trust that he will deliver.

    1. Disappointment arriving in 3…2…1…

    2. As watching his reaction he didn’t knew the sunday note about turn 14 so that expalins his reaction but they told him after Paul interview that they changed and added turn 14 for the race. Please watch first before you react.

      1. Pjotr (@pietkoster)
        3rd May 2021, 0:00

        Max didn’t care, what ever he said. Guess he wanted to leave this farce of a circuit as soon as possible.

        1. It’s a fantastic circuit!! Great variation of corners, superb change of elevation and an extremely challenging track surface. Portimao should be a regular addition to the calendar IMO

      2. F1oSaurus (@)
        3rd May 2021, 13:37

        @macleod That was a very dumb remark though. Granted the wording for turn 14 in the Saturday (not Sunday) morning revision was vague, but he already bumped into that stone.

        He had his pole time deleted for turn 14 track limits in Q3. So how could he not know there was track limit monitoring on turn 14?

        1. His Q3 time deleted was in turn 4 when the rear went away by the wind So he had a bad time still was deleted without gaining a advantage. That the track went off after that noone could expect.

          So turn 14 was not monitored during the race (It’s didn’t was in the sunday note but was added that why he was confused) but was added for monitoring.

          Red Bull was doing damage control when they noticed Merdes was just a bit too fast on the yellow (that was why Max couldn’t overtake Bottas)

        2. Raynaud (@)
          3rd May 2021, 23:19

          This is also a very dumb post of you since it was turn 4 not 14. Better watch the qualification or just don’t post something you don’t know.

  10. Chose Hamilton for his 2 on track passes but Norris was close and would have taken it but for his slightly sub par qualifying. While Hamilton missed out on pole it was a very tiny gap.

    1. Lewis got also passed but passing Max was way to easy with DRS

      1. ?? Was it WAY too easy though? Check again. That took some balls to take that inside line like he did. The closing speed was very big but that made for a very tense overtake. Max pushed Lewis as far right as he could get away with but Lewis could easily have been spooked. Was a decent overtake! The overtake on VB was also good but you have to take in the calibre of driver being overtaken.

        1. The overtake compared with Bottas overtake (Lewis) was if Max was standing still so fast he went by. Lewis overtake on Bottas was very good Bottas went of the raceline and didn’t return so Lewis could take the racingline and overtake him on the outside.

  11. Let’s go for Mick. To be honest it’s so hard to judge, but he seems to be doing well. Pleased he got some TV time today.

  12. Has the Tsunoda hype died down yet? Let’s be honest, he was awful this weekend.

    1. The Tsunoda hype was stupid wasn’t it! After testing he was declared the great hope of Asia and the second coming of Senna. This hype train has most definitely come off the rails and not before time!

    2. @john-h I would say that it will depend on how he recovers from a disappointing weekend.

      I imagine that everybody would be expecting a few poorer performances over the season, given that it is his first year in the sport and there will be sone circuits, such as Portimao, where Tsunoda would have the challenge of adapting to his car compounded by learning a new circuit too.

      If he can respond positively to that and shows enough promise over the rest of the season, then I expect this race will be written off as part of that learning process – the odd individual poor race would be accepted if he shows a broader trend of further promise and signs of improvement over the season as a whole.

  13. The top four were all a bit disapointing this weekend…
    Norris was great again, so was Ocon this time and also Schumacher impressed me in the race.
    In the end I voted for Norris. Again. Great season he is having.

  14. Hamilton, only missed out by a fraction for poll and pulled off 2 great passes plus an easy pass on Perez to take the lead against 3 drivers with essentially the same level and pace of car. His pass on Verstappen was excellent and on Bottas was exceptional. Norris also good. Schumacher beating Mazepin makes him star driver, really?! Beating Verstappen surely counts a bit more…

    1. @david-br
      Schumi finished a minute ahead of Mazepin and ahead of Latifi as well. He smashed Nikita in quali as well and had an error free weekend. I thought he did quite a stellar job given the machinery he has

      1. F1oSaurus (@)
        3rd May 2021, 13:40

        @todfod Doesn’t that say more about how poor Latifi and Mazepin are though?

        1. @f1osaurus

          What other benchmark does he have? Russell? He finished only a few seconds behind him as well.

          1. @todfod whilst Mazepin had a pretty poor weekend, there is the slight caveat that about half of that gap in the race is due to Mazepin making an additional stop compared to Mick (and I’ve not really seen a clear explanation for why he was switched onto the softs after a fairly short stint on the hard tyres).

          2. F1oSaurus (@)
            5th May 2021, 6:57

            @todfod Yeah basically there is no benchmark for these back marker teams.

            Russel was something like 25 seconds ahead. Hardly a “few” seconds.

            And as anon says, most of that Schumacher – Mazepin gap was due to an extra pitstop for Mazepin. They were treating the race as a test session since they were dead last anyway. If not for that extra pitstop, the gap between Russel and Latifi was similar.

  15. Hamilton for overtaking both Max and Bottas on track and winning in style. Ocon and Lando had a brilliant race too.

  16. Verstappen was seriously underrated here, I thought, I think considering the slight pace advantage in qualifying and race (at least in portugal) his performance was similar to hamilton, and both are contenders for dotw, hamilton made a good pass on bottas.

    1. @esploratore

      Agree. I thought Max was as good as Lewis this weekend. He might have botched it out of turn 14 once to lose position to Lewis.. But let’s face it Lewis botched the SC restart as well. Mercedes’ superior race pace gave them the win this weekend. Verstappen punched above the cars weight to finish P2 and that move on Bottas out of pits was quite stellar. I would rate Lewis and Max equal this weekend, just behind Lando, who was my DOTW.

  17. Ocon for me. Very solid race and quali, beating his illustrious teammate in both. Norris was fantastic all weekend, but I think Ocon needed a result more at this stage so I’m going with him.

    Hamilton was beaten by his teammate in quali so shouldn’t be in the running for driver of the weekend. Verstappen made critical mistakes in quali and the race that cost him a win.

    1. I glanced over Ocon, but you do make a compelling case indeed. Ocon had a strongish race but qualifying especially was impressive. I hope to see Alpine joining McLaren and Ferrari for that front-midfield battle.

  18. I went with Lando Norris for driver of the weekend.

    If there was poll for worst driver of the weekend, I would have gone with Nikita Mazepin, easy. I think the 2% of the voters who voted him as best this weekend did so as a joke.

  19. Alonso for me. He has a very great race with many overtakes. He overtook Ricciard on McLaren on the same tires and finished just behind Ocon, who started from 6th place.

  20. Honestly hard for me to vote, because most drivers performed as expected or within that at least. I’ll name a trio:
    Hamilton, for fighting back from P3 to take the win, gets my DOTW award
    Norris, for continuing to safely run as the best of the rest, gets the runner-up
    Schumacher, for obliterating his team mate in Q and Race, including passing a Williams on pace alone, gets the bronze medal.
    A lot of others performed well on the Sunday, including Alonso, but for DOTW he had a Saturday that wasn’t strong enough.

  21. Lewis passed to cars in track

    1. Oops that was too soon

      Lewis passed 2 cars on track for the win. That’s it for me

  22. HAM definitely doesn’t deserve it as he didn’t know PER was in front of him. Voted for da Russian for defending against all comers. At least I think he intentionally got in PER’s way.

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