Hamilton's incredible F1 feat as rain plays havoc in Russia

3 years ago 371

Lewis Hamilton has go the archetypal Formula One operator to triumph 100 races with triumph successful the Russian Grand Prix connected Sunday to retake the title pb from Max Verstappen.

Australian operator Daniel Ricciardo, whose teammate Lando Norris led for overmuch of the race, finished fourth.

Hamilton dropped to seventh spot erstwhile helium was boxed successful astatine the archetypal country but fought backmost and passed Norris for the triumph erstwhile the McLaren operator stayed retired connected slick tires successful precocious rainfall and slid disconnected the track.

"It's taken a agelong clip to get to 100 and astatine times, I wasn't definite it would come," Hamilton said.

It was his 5th triumph of the play and his archetypal since the British Grand Prix successful July.

Hamilton turned Verstappen's five-point title pb into a two-point pb of his ain arsenic the Dutch operator finished 2nd aft a melodramatic thrust from past connected the grid. Carlos Sainz was 3rd for Ferrari.

Verstappen started past aft a punishment for an motor alteration successful his Red Bull but sliced done the tract and had Hamilton successful show by the halfway stage.

Hamilton's Mercedes worked amended connected the hard tires successful the 2nd fractional of the contention and Verstappen's complaint seemed to person stalled erstwhile helium was overtaken by the Alpine of Fernando Alonso and stuck successful seventh.

But past the rainfall came and Verstappen switched to intermediate tires early, allowing him to assertion an unexpected podium decorativeness and bounds the harm to his hopes of a archetypal title.

"We didn't suffer truthful galore points today, truthful that's really, truly good," Verstappen told his squad implicit the radio.

Norris trailed successful seventh aft his gamble to enactment connected adust tires against the proposal of his squad failed.

If not for the rain, Hamilton said, "it would person been pugnacious to get past Lando. He had large pace."

Norris had been aiming to springiness McLaren back-to-back wins aft Ricciardo took triumph astatine the past contention successful Italy erstwhile Hamilton and Verstappen collided.

Hamilton has present won the Russian Grand Prix connected 5 of 8 occasions, and his triumph Sunday continues a cleanable expanse of victories successful Russia for Mercedes cars.

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