Bottas does his job for the sixth Mercedes title

Valtteri Bottas, so many times in the shade, he saw it clearly from the beginning in Suzuka and went for the victory without hesitation. Much better than Lewis Hamilton, without rhythm in the first relay, although with the solidity necessary to close the sixth consecutive title of Mercedes in the Constructors' World Championship. The Briton can wear his sixth crown in two weeks if he adds 15 points more in Mexico than his partner. Too far from those accounts, Ferrari can only console itself with the second place of Sebastian Vettel, who held the final thrusts of the future hexacampeón.

Carlos Sainz, from the seventh place on the grid, risked with a strategy to a stop and for some time he could intuit the podium dream in the distance. After beating the copper with the greats at the start, he chose to await some failure of Alexander Albon. The fifth place in the goal knows even better given the problems of Lando Norris, outside the points. Again, they must feel more than satisfied in McLaren.

On the contrary, nobody in Maranello can take this Sunday's management for good, with a busy schedule because of Typhoon Hagibis. He had concentrated so much on Sunday that the red double in the previous classification seemed to catch everyone with his foot changed. Even to their own pilots, gripped at the moment the traffic light went out. Vettel was so clamorous in the tacos that the commissioners had to investigate his departure, although they let the matter run without sanctions. The crux of the matter was going to take place a few meters later between Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc.

Debris rain

They were going to reissue the battles of unfortunate memory for the Monegasque. From the teachings of Spieberg and Hockenheim, where he left scalded, another twisted fang pilot has emerged, risking the regulation limit without thinking too much about the consequences. His controversial maneuver in the second corner was not penalized, although he himself bore the consequences of his mistake.

For almost two laps he implored Ferrari engineers to delay the inevitable pit stop. The left part of his front wing was hanging by a thread and one of his mirrors was fired without, fortunately, no misfortune. Hamilton, right in his wake, could only stand on the rain of rubble. Finally, Ferrari could not help stopping his young driver while Verstappen, to everyone's misfortune, was forced into abandonment on the fifteenth lap.

At that time, the timesheet reflected the red inferiority to Bottas, a conclusive leader after too many weeks of vulgarity. Benefited in addition to Hamilton's bad feelings, on one of those Sundays where everything seems wrong. Ferrari, only with the trick of Vettel, tested on lap 17 with an alternative strategy of soft tires for the German.

Complaints by radio

A couple of laps later, Mercedes imposed common sense with the yellow tires for its two drivers. "Why didn't you put the hard one on me?" Hamilton lamented, the more he complains, the more he seems to enjoy driving. From lap 22 to 37, when they returned to Bottas, the World Cup leader was on the prowl, with that reluctance of his so irritating. With 16 turns ahead he looked rewarded with an artificial leadership.

He had to stop for the last time to put on the soft tires, just to rebuild Vettel. An unapproachable rhythm, two seconds better than Bottas, for the fast lap (1: 30.983) with which to haunt the German. How could I not have pushed so much during the initial stretch? So much complaint by radio about the calculations of his engineers and finally Lewis could not even close the double of the Silver Arrows. Time is left in Mexico or Austin to clean this little stain.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

• Formula 1
• sports
• Mercedes GP
• Valtteri Bottas
• Lewis Hamilton
• Sebastian Vettel

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