Bottas wins Sprint to claim pole position in São Paulo

Ahead of Verstappen as Hamilton recovers to fifth

By Franck Drui

13 November 2021 - 21:09
Bottas wins Sprint to claim pole (...)

Valtteri Bottas will start Formula 1’s São Paulo Grand Prix from pole position after beating championship leader Max Verstappen in the Sprint to define the grid for tomorrow’s race. Meanwhile, following his disqualification from qualifying, Lewis Hamilton recovered fifth place thanks an aggressive drive from the back of the grid.

At the start, Bottas’s soft tyres gave him the better start and he passed P1 starter Verstappen as the pair went into Turn 1. Further back, Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, also starting on soift tyres, had made a similarly quick start and he quickly passed Red Bull’s Sergio Pérez and put prtessue on Verstappen as the field went through the Senna S.

Sainz then slotted into Verstappen’s slipstream on the long run to Turn 4 and passed the Dutch driver on the inside, a move that forced the Red Bull driver wide.

Verstappen then began to rattle off fastest laps and by lap five he was back ahead of Sainz and was eating into a two-second gap to Bottas.

Meanwhile, at the rear of the field, Hamilton picked up five places on the opening lap and he soon began to scythe through the slower midfield cars and on lap tow he rose to 14th. He then used DRS on the pit straight to move past AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda, Alfa Romeo’s Antonio Giovinazzi and Alpine’s Fernando Alonso to reach the edge of the top 10 by the start of lap nine.

He was briefly bottled up behind McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo but at the the end of lap 12, he closed in the final corners and again powered past on the start-finish straight. He then swiftly moved past Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel, Alpine’s Esteban Ocon AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc to sit in sixth place as the race head towards it final few laps. Hamilton made one final move, past McLaren’s Lando Norris, at the start of the final lap to claim a superb fifth place behind Pérez.

At the front Verstappen closed the gap to Bottas and slipped within DRS range in the second half of the race. But the Finn was managing his soft tyres well and he was able to stabilise the gap to the Red Bull driver who was suffering on his mediums in the Mercedes’ wake.

It was a similar tale for Verstappen’s team-mate Pérez. The Mexican was unable to find a way past soft tyre-shod Sainz and though he spent the bulk of the race within DRS range, the Ferrari driver defended well to take P3 at the flag.

With Hamilton fifth ahead of Norris the top 10 was completed by Leclerc, Gasly, Ocon and Vettel. Hamilton will start 10th for Sunday’s grand prix as a result of his grid penalty for taking a new internal combustion engine for this event.

PosDriverCarGapPit
01 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes W12 24 laps - 29m09.559s 0
02 Max Verstappen Red Bull Honda RB16B +1.170 0
03 Carlos Sainz Ferrari SF21 +18.723 0
04 Sergio Pérez Red Bull Honda RB16B +19.787 0
05 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes W12 +20.872 0
06 Lando Norris McLaren Mercedes MCL35M +22.558 0
07 Charles Leclerc Ferrari SF21 +25.056 0
08 Pierre Gasly AlphaTauri Honda AT02 +34.158 0
09 Esteban Ocon Alpine Renault A521 +34.632 0
10 Sebastian Vettel Aston Martin Mercedes AMR21 +34.867 0
11 Daniel Ricciardo McLaren Mercedes MCL35M +35.869 0
12 Fernando Alonso Alpine Renault A521 +36.578 0
13 Antonio Giovinazzi Alfa Romeo Ferrari C41 +41.880 0
14 Lance Stroll Aston Martin Mercedes AMR21 +44.037 0
15 Yuki Tsunoda AlphaTauri Honda AT02 +46.150 0
16 Nicholas Latifi Williams Mercedes FW43B +46.760 0
17 George Russell Williams Mercedes FW43B +47.739 0
18 Kimi Räikkönen Alfa Romeo Ferrari C41 +50.014 0
19 Mick Schumacher Haas Ferrari VF-21 +61.680 0
20 Nikita Mazepin Haas Ferrari VF-21 +67.474 0

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