Sergio Perez Has a Race of His Life to Win Sakhir Grand Prix
The Sunday evening arrived, which meant the start of one of the most anticipated F1 races in 2020 — Sakhir GP on the outer layout. The lights were out and lap 1 was hectic. George Russell got spun after turn 3, while in front George Russell took the lead. Charles Leclerc locked his front tyre and had a contact with Sergio Perez. That, however, resulted in Leclerc and Max Verstappen ending up in the barrier with Perez having to pit. The Safety Car was deployed to clean up the track.
The racing action restarted and Russell kept the lead, looking for a possible race victory in his first race at Mercedes. He started building up the gap from his teammate Valtteri Bottas. Russell was confident with the car and had momentum. Sergio Perez had fresh tyres and began his comeback. The drivers eventually began to change tyres and it turned out that undercut was an effective strategy. Finally, it was the leaders’ turn to change the tyres and the early pit stop allowed George Russell to increase the distance to Bottas up to 9 seconds. However, the Briton felt that he was losing power. After that, the race got much crazier.
It all started on lap 55, when Nicholas Latifi stopped the car and caused Virtual Safety Car. Bottas was less than 5 seconds away from Russell after VSC. Another Williams driver Jack Aitken lost the car at the exit of the final turn and hit the barrier, losing the front wing. Virtual Safety Car and then the real Safety Car was deployed. Mercedes decided to make a double-stack pit stop, but everything went wrong. Both stops were not smooth at all and Russell also had to stop once again after finding out the compounds were mixed. Sergio Perez inherited the race lead, ahead of Esteban Ocon and Lance Stroll.
The race got underway once again and Perez started to get away from the rest of the pack. Russell had an incredible pace on Mediums and got up to P2, but then there was more heartbreak. He suffered a slow puncture and had to stop for another time, throwing out all the chances to win. Valtteri Bottas had nothing left in his tyres and got passed by plenty of drivers, going down to 9th. Sergio Perez had a great pace at the end and took the chequered flag, winning the first race in his Formula 1 career, which definitely was a miraculous one for sure. Esteban Ocon finished second, stepping up to the podium for the first time ever and Lance Stroll held off Carlos Sainz to complete the podium and to make Racing Point’s first-ever double podium — an amazing result, especially after the double retirement last week. George Russell finished 9th, scoring his first championship points, but is currently under investigation for the pit stop incident.
