Track Torque: Furious Verstappen has to hand it to Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton won a pretty dramatic Brazilian Grand Prix after a stupid conflict between Esteban Ocon and Max Verstappen on lap 44.

Ocon was a lap behind but stubbornly would not give way to Verstappen, who was trying to overtake him while in the lead.

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In the end, both cars touched and spun off, making it easy for Hamilton to take over first spot.

Ocon was given a 10 second stop-go penalty for the offence but more was waiting for him when Verstappen got to him after the race.

Fortunately, Verstappen was restrained and there were no blows, but the Dutchman was furious.

Verstappen had really driven a great race after starting from P5 on the grid, not the least including a great manoeuvre around the outside of Kimi Raikkonen into turn one.

The Red Bull team had been clever once again and concentrated on race pace when they weren’t fast enough in a straight line to achieve pole position.

Their cars were therefore very quick on Sunday and it wasn’t long before Verstappen got past both Mercedes vehicles and into the lead.

It was doubly destroying that Ocon should take all this effort away from him.

Hence, the result was that Hamilton was first, Verstappen second and Raikkonen third.

Raikkonen had driven a very good race, begging the question as to why he is leaving Ferrari for Sauber.

Next up in the Brazilian show was Daniel Ricciardo who had also done a great job in bringing his car right up to the brink of podium in fourth spot after being pushed backwards on the grid through previous penalties.

Valtteri Bottas was in an unfamiliar fifth position, spaced backwards by those I have spoken about above, while teammate Sebastian Vettel was even worse off in the other Ferrari in sixth place.

It just wasn’t their day after all the potential they have shown lately.

Next in the picture was the man to replace Raikkonen, namely Charles Leclerc, doing another good job inside the Sauber Alfa Romeo, while the two quick Haas machines of Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen were line astern behind.

In 10th position was the sober Force India driver, Sergio Perez, while his not-so-sober-minded teammate Ocon had forced himself out.

It is interesting to note that the two Honda engined Toro Rossos gave another good account of themselves in 11th and 13th position respectively, drivers being Brendan Hartley and Pierre Gasly.

It had been a great race and the rewards were just, or almost so.

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Verstappen was acclaimed man of the race and of course, he should have won.

Next and last stop on the F1 circus trip is Abu Dhabi at Yas Marina in two weeks’ time.

DRIVERS:

1 Lewis Hamilton 383

2 Sebastian Vettel 302

3 Kimi Raikkonen 251

4 Valtteri Bottas 237

5 Max Verstappen 234

6 Daniel Ricciardo 158

7 Nico Hulkenberg 69

8 Sergio Perez 58

9 Kevin Magnussen 55

10 Fernando Alonso 50

TEAM:

1 Mercedes 620

2 Ferrari 553

3 Red Bull 392

4 Renault 114

5 Haas 90

6 McLaren 62

7 Racing Point Force India 48

8 Sauber 42

9 Toro Rosso 33

10 Williams 7

11 EX-Sahara Force India 0

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