We went racing again this week in Portugal for the start of a double header. This race in Portimao was 66 laps between Mercedes and Red Bull which saw a lot of really great tyre management from a lot of people. As this season has continued to prove, it will be a close championship fight between the two teams and between Max and Lewis.

I think that the race, although good racing which saw some strong overtakes, was a little bit predictable. My parents mentioned the rhyme “round and round and round she goes, where she stops everybody seems to know.” While the championship fight is really competitive, which is great, the podiums don’t seem to differ much. I hope to see some new faces on the podium, or maybe see some older ones too, at some point this year.

The race today continued the so far set tradition of having a safety car in the first few laps after Kimi Raikkonen hit his teammate Antonio Giovinazzi and lost his front wing. The full safety car was deployed to allow for the debris and Kimi’s car to be cleared away. He was the only person in the race to DNF.

At the safety car restart, Valtteri Bottas made a brilliant jump after keeping everyone guessing when he was going to start. This surprise start also led Verstappen to be able to overtake Hamilton, however, that only lasted for four laps.

Daniel Ricciardo had a good drive to finish P9 after a disappointing qualifying left him starting the race in P16. I think he is finally settling into his McLaren and I expect good things from him this season. He is a great driver with good experience and I think he will make a good teammate/competitor for Lando.

As mentioned earlier there was some really good tyre management in the race. Lance Stroll managed to hold onto softs for over 30 laps and the driver of the day Checo Perez holding onto his medium tyres for over 45 laps.

Checo had a relatively quite race staying in fourth for a good chunk of the time, while briefly leading during the pit stop windows. He claimed that Lando Norris passed him by exceeded track limits but that was not investigated and Checo claimed the place back on his own a short time later. He had a run in with Nikita Mazepin while leading the race when the Russian ignored the blue flags and cut Checo off. He was given a five second time penalty for that. Personally, I don’t think that punishment does much. I know there isn’t really anything the FIA can do, but I don’t think much gets through to Mazepin.

It was another disappointing race for George Russell. He started in P11, which was his highest qualifying position in Williams. However, he had trouble with his car and ended the race in P16. I hope to see things start to turn around for Russell. He is a good driver as he has proven and has good potential. Unfortunately he just isn’t in the right car. Fingers crossed that this year could see him getting his first Williams points, and maybe even a spot in a Q3.

The eventual race result would see Hamilton claiming his 97th victory with Verstappen coming home second and Bottas rounding out the top three. There was a fight between Bottas and Verstappen for fastest lap, but that would eventually go to Bottas after Verstappen had his lap time deleted for exceeding track limits at turn 14.

Checo Perez came home in fourth followed by Lando Norris in fifth, Charles Leclerc in sixth, Esteban Ocon in seventh, his teammate Fernando Alonso in eighth, Daniel Ricciardo in ninth and Pierre Gasly rounding out the top ten.

We are back to racing next week in Barcelona. Here’s to this season’s first double header, let’s keep our fingers crossed it keeps up this season’s track record of quality racing.