Wow, that was a finish! The fight for victory to the very end or Who won in France?

Absolutely grandiose! The 2021 French Grand Prix has its winner, decided with just one lap to go. How did this race go and who won?

The seventh race of the Formula One World Championship is now over, this time in France at the Paul Ricard circuit. And after the start, we witnessed a shocking moment.

After starting from pole position, Max Verstappen lost the race lead at the first corner. Verstappen was unable to correct the direction of his car’s turn, and he slipped at the apex of the first corner and found himself off the track for a short while. Lewis Hamilton took the lead in the race.

In any case, the seven-time world champion complained to the team radio not long afterwards about the lack of grip of his monoposto, but still managed to pass the second-placed Verstappen.

After the start, Fernando Alonso moved up to eighth place, while Lance Stroll in his Aston Martin and Kimi Räikkönen in his Alfa Romeo also made progress. On the other hand, both McLaren drivers – Daniel Ricciardo and Lando Norris – lost their positions.

Over the next few laps it was Stroll who moved up in the standings, at the end of the fourth lap he was already in 14th place. The McLaren drivers fought their way back, with Alonso dropping to tenth.

However, he lost another place on lap 14 when Sebastian Vettel overtook him. The Aston Martins were having a pretty good race at this point. On lap 15, several drivers reported tyre problems. In fact, the middle compound started to wear unexpectedly fast at race pace, especially the front tyres.

So on lap 15, Charles Leclerc was the first driver to head to his mechanics. The twenty-three-year-old Monegasque was fitted with whitewall tyres in the pit lane – the hardest compound. Even on these, however, the drivers had minor grip problems after a few laps.

Between the seventeenth and twentieth lap, most of the drivers pitted for the hardest compound. The second most important point of the race was lap nineteen. It was the one in which Verstappen headed to his mechanics, Red Bull attempting to undercut Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes with this manoeuvre.

And it worked! Hamilton stopped a lap later and was right behind Verstappen as he exited pit lane. So the leader of the race at that point was the Red Bull Racing driver.

However, the current championship leader pitted once more on lap 32. This time, however, he switched back to the medium tyres marked yellow.

The order on lap 35 was as follows – 1. Hamilton, 2. Bottas, 3. Pérez, 4. Verstappen, 5. Vettel, 6. Norris, 7. Ricciardo, 8. Sainz, 9. Gasly, 10. Alonso, 11. Leclerc, 12. Tsunoda, 13. Russell, 14. Stroll, 15. Ocon, 16. Giovinazzi, 17. Latifi, 18. Räikkönen, 19. Schumacher and Mazepin rounded out the overall standings.

However, on the following circuit, Verstappen caught up with Sergio Pérez, who of course let him go ahead as part of the team’s overhead. Two laps later, Vettel also pitted and subsequently dropped to 11th.

But this race was absolutely not going well for the Italian stable from Maranello. On lap 39, Leclerc went to his mechanics again and was only to be seen in 16th position after his pit-stop. His teammate Carlos Sainz was also losing positions, having been overtaken by Pierre Gasly on lap 37.

Key moment number three was the overtaking of Valtteri Bottas by Verstappen on lap forty-four. The Finnish Mercedes driver did not handle the battle tactically at all. Too soon, he took to a defensive and dirty track. He subsequently lost his second position.

Bottas, however, didn’t last long in third position either, and five laps later he was overtaken by Verstappen’s teammate Pérez in a brilliant manoeuvre. The thirty-one year old Mexican thus took the podium position.

The biggest moment of the French Grand Prix came on the penultimate lap of the race. Verstappen started to pull away from Hamilton from lap 50 and two laps later the job was done!

The talented Dutchman thus secured another very important victory for himself and consolidated his position at the head of the drivers’ championship. We had the opportunity to see both Red Bull drivers on the podium.

After this Grand Prix, not only has Verstappen consolidated his position in first place, but Red Bull also leads the team standings with 215 points. Second Mercedes has 178 points, third McLaren 110.

Verstappen has a solid points haul in France. In addition to the 25 points for the win, he also scored an extra championship point for the fastest lap of the race.

Bottas finished fourth ahead of Norris in fifth and Ricciardo in sixth. McLaren once again showed excellent race pace in the French Grand Prix and also improved significantly on its starting position thanks to a highly effective strategy. It also consolidated its position in third place in the Constructors’ Cup.

Gasly was seventh in the results with the Alpha Tauri, Alonso (Alpine F1) eighth, Vettel ninth and Stroll (both Aston Martin) rounded out the top ten.

It was a disastrous race for Ferrari. Sainz finished 11th, Leclerc even 16th. The Italian team didn’t score a single point in this Grand Prix! A solid performance in the race from George Russell in the Williams, who was again close to the top ten. This time he rounded off his time at the French circuit in twelfth place.

Including Russell, the following drivers finished one lap behind the race winner – 13th Tsunoda, 14th Ocon, 15th Giovinazzi, 16th Leclerc, 17th Räikkönen, 18th Latifi, 19th Schumacher, 20th Mazepin.

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