REDEMPTION FOR BOTTAS AS VERSTAPPEN MOVES AHEAD
PHOTOGRAPHY
What a difference nearly 11 months makes. In Valtteri Bottas’s case, that and several other critical factors were enough to have him go from “probably the worst race of my career” in the 2020 Turkish Grand Prix to a dominant “one-of-the-best” victory in similarly damp conditions in 2021 at Istanbul Park.
This time, Bottas was starting from an inherited pole. And he was sharing the front row with one of Formula 1’s best wet-weather drivers: Max Verstappen. The pre-race signs did not look good. But he confounded the form book and snarky expectations with a dazzling, dominant display to take a famous victory ahead of Verstappen, in the process aiding the title ambitions of team-mate Lewis Hamilton. These three drivers were, once again, the central figures.
BOTTAS’S BOOM
Sunday had started grey and gloomy, with the 3.3 miles of track wet throughout. Conditions were the coldest of the weekend when the race started, with intermittent drizzle keeping the circuit damp in the run-up, with few patches of standing water. There was no danger of a delayed or safety car start – race director Michael Masi later explained that he did “not at all” consider such a move at any point – and so Bottas led the pack around to the grid on intermediate tyres. When the lights went out, he, Verstappen and the third-place-starting Charles Leclerc made near identical reactions, with the Ferrari gaining the most ground since Verstappen’s start was away from the racing line.
At the first corner, the scene of his first of six spins here last season, Bottas swept ahead. That rather set the tone, and by the end of the first tour he was
