New Delhi: Dutch car racer Max Verstappen won the Formula One (F1) title during the French Grand Prix at the Circuit Paul Ricard on Sunday, July 24, 2022. Meanwhile, the race marked the 300th Grand Prix of British racer, Lewis Hamilton, who came in second.
Hamilton has won 103 races so far and has produced some brilliant and memorable drives along the way. He started the race at the fourth position on the grid.
Charles Leclerc was lined first on the grid, followed by Max Verstappen in second place, Sergio Perez in third, and Lewis Hamilton in the fourth place on the grid, followed by Lando Norris and George Russell placed fifth and sixth, respectively. On the other hand, Carlos Sainz began the race from the 19th position.
The game begins with Leclerc who leads into a corner as Hamilton shoots up at third place in lap one. Fernando Alosno too benefits and jumps to rank five.
Kevin Magnussen leapt in 13th place after the first lap, whereas Charles Leclerc lead from Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton. By lap four, Sainz ranked 15th while planning to fall in top 10.
Strategic time was lost between two racers during the stopover at the pit lanes. Lap six saw Perez right behind Hamilton who tries taking to overtake but backs off.
On the other hand, Verstappen tried closing in on Charles Leclerc with a minimum distance of over half a second between them.
The Red Bull was fighting for top two positions on the leaderboard. Sainz further rose to rank 12 from 19. Sainz overtakes Sebastian Vettel at rank 11 and eyes the top 10 positions during lap 13.
However, Ferrari racer Charles Leclerc hit a wall at turn 11 during lap 18 and was immediately out of the race. This is the third time this year when Leclerc had to retire mid-race citing accidents.
As the safety car reached turn 11 to clear the Ferrari, Verstappen lead the race and was followed by Hamilton by lap 21.
Hamilton was sandwiched between Red Bull and Ferrari during lap 22, with Verstappen covering the fastest lap. Mick Schumacher spins and receives a yellow flag in lap 23. Meanwhile, Zhou Guanyu clipped the rear of the Haas, causing the spin and damage to Zhou’s front wing in lap 24.
Sainz blocked Nicholas Latifi after a slow release into the pitlane and received a penalty in lap 25 as Guanyu gets a five second time penalty for causing that collision with Mick Schumacher.
Sainz faced trouble getting past Russell, a similar problem faced previously by Verstappen in getting past Leclerc during the start of the game.
Lando Norris reaches seventh place with Fernando Alonso ahead of him by lap 35. On the other hand, Verstappen and Hamilton maintain their positions till lap 53 as the Dutch wins the French Grand Prix 2022.
Talking about Mercedes being closer to overtake Ferrari and Red Bull on the track, Hamilton had said, “I was thinking we might be 0.2 seconds or something like that. But we’re a second off and I don’t have an answer for that.”
(Avya Mathur)
