F1-In-Dar

During the Portuguese GP, tyre strategy once again gave the Mercedes team an edge. Thus they held on to a set of new soft tyres for each car until the race's closing laps. While Hamilton didn't use them, a switch to them was briefly mentioned on team radio but deemed unnecessary.

These tyres then enabled Bottas to really push and grab the fastest lap by about 0.8 of a second faster than the RedBulls, both of which ran on their "scrubbed" soft tyres at that crucial phase of the race.

And Hamilton's tyre management skills were once again put to good use. It was visible how Verstappen's tactics – constantly attacking whatever car was ahead of him – differed greatly from those of Hamilton. He would instead drop back out of his adversary's "dirty air", study the racing lines taken, and then close up only at places where an opportunity to pass seemed most likely. In the end, Hamilton's scrubbed hard tyres lasted all of 29 laps but, after that same distance Verstappen ditched his new hard tyres.

All in all it was an entertaining race, with only the shortcoming of the TV cameras focusing too much on the front-runners at the expense of very lively action further down the field.