Hamilton wins stop-start Tuscan GP, only 12 cars finish

Lewis Hamilton moved to within one grand prix win of Michael Schumacher’s record tally of 91 by triumphing in a twice-red-flagged first Mugello Formula 1 race.

Hamilton had lost the lead to the faster-starting Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas at the race’s original beginning, but multiple collisions in the pack meant a rapid safety car deployment.

Monza winner Pierre Gasly and Kimi Raikkonen tangled and collected Romain Grosjean and Max Verstappen – the Red Bull down in the pack having suddenly lost power off the start. This followed a pre-race problem that the team hoped it had rectified.

Just ahead, Carlos Sainz Jr spun following contact with Lance Stroll and was clipped by Sebastian Vettel.

Gasly and Verstappen immediately retired, while Vettel and Raikkonen pitted for repairs.

At the restart, confusion in the pack as midfielders accelerated for a restart at a time when leader Bottas was still controlling the pace approaching the startline led to an enormous multi-car crash on the start-finish straight.

Sainz, Nicholas Latifi, Antonio Giovinazzi and Kevin Magnussen were all eliminated with heavy damage and a red flag was required. Renault retired Esteban Ocon’s car from 10th during the stoppage due to a brake problem.

Although Bottas got away better again at the standing restart, Hamilton went all the way around the outside of him at first corner San Donato.

Bottas stayed in touch with Hamilton until dramatically losing pace with high tyre wear approaching the first pitstops, leaving him 6s behind his team-mate once they’d both pitted.

There was a much closer battle for third in the Mercedes’ wake, initially headed by Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari – which had made two rapid starts.

The Ferrari soon went backwards in racing circumstances and then pitted early, leaving the podium fight between Lance Stroll, Daniel Ricciardo and recovering slow-restarter Alex Albon.

Ricciardo jumped Stroll for third by pitting earliest of the trio, but was coming back under pressure from the Racing Point and Albon heading into the race’s final quarter.

Then Stroll suddenly had a heavy crash in the middle of the fast Arrabbiata corners after what he felt was a tyre failure, prompting a second red flag.

The restart gave Bottas another shot at Hamilton, but instead he fell to third off the line behind Ricciardo.

Though Bottas repassed the Renault into the first corner on the second lap of the final sprint, Hamilton was comfortably clear already and went on to win for the sixth time in 2020’s nine races so far.

Ricciardo could not hang on for Renault’s first podium of its current factory F1 programme as he soon came under attack from Albon – who had dropped behind Sergio Perez at the restart before repassing the Racing Point later in the lap.

Albon managed to take third from Ricciardo with a bold outside-line move at San Donato, and was encouraged by engineer Simon Rennie to chase Bottas for second.

A fastest race lap from Bottas (later beaten by Hamilton) soon afterwards showed that would be in vain, and Albon settled for an overdue first F1 podium.

Perez completed the top five ahead of Lando Norris’s McLaren and Daniil Kvyat’s AlphaTauri.

Kimi Raikkonen crossed the line eighth, having gained three places at the final restart, but a five-second time penalty for a pitlane entry infringement dropped him to ninth between the Ferraris of Leclerc and Vettel.

There was heartbreak for George Russell and Williams, who ran in the points for most of the race only to fall to the back at the final restart. He could only regain one place by passing Grosjean’s damaged Haas, and finished 11th.

Race Results