The 2020 Portuguese Grand Prix (officially known as the Formula 1 Heineken Grande Prémio de Portugal 2020) was a Formula One motor race that was held on 25 October 2020 at the Algarve International Circuit in Portimão, Portugal. It was the first Portuguese Grand Prix held since 1996 and the first time held at the Algarve International Circuit. The race was the twelfth round of the 2020 Formula One World Championship.

Lewis Hamilton's victory put him ahead of Michael Schumacher for most victories in Formula One with 92.

Background

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic The 2020 Formula One World Championship was heavily affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Most of the originally planned Grands Prix were cancelled or postponed, prompting the FIA to draft a new calendar. The Portuguese Grand Prix did not feature on the original 2020 schedule, but was added in July 2020 in order to maximise the number of races in the season.

Up to 45,000 fans were initially expected to attend the race. However, due to a surge of cases attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic in the country, the number of fans allowed to attend the race was later reduced to 27,500.

Entrants

Ten teams (each representing a different constructor) each entered two drivers. The drivers and teams were the same as those on the season entry list with no additional stand-in drivers for either the race or practice.

Tyres

Sole Formula One tyre manufacturer Pirelli brought their C1, C2 and C3 compound tyres for teams to use in the race, the three hardest compounds available. Pirelli also tested the tyre compounds during the first 30 minutes of the second practice session.

Other Former Renault and Caterham driver Vitaly Petrov was given the role of driver steward for the weekend, however was required to depart the role during the weekend following the death of his father. Bruno Correia, the Safety Car driver for Formula E and the World Touring Car Cup and a local to Portimão, took his place for the remainder of the weekend.

Practice The first practice session ran without incidents and ended with Valtteri Bottas fastest ahead of Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton and Red Bull driver Max Verstappen. The second practice session saw two red flags; the first when Pierre Gasly's AlphaTauri caught fire, the second when Lance Stroll and Verstappen collided. The session ended with Bottas fastest ahead of Verstappen and McLaren's Lando Norris. The race stewards investigated the Stroll–Verstappen collision and took no action. Following the collision, Verstappen referred to Stroll as a "mongol" on the team radio to his engineer, a comment which was condemned by the Mongolian government as being offensive. The third practice session was red flagged in the final minute of the session after Sebastian Vettel ran over a drain cover. which subsequently came loose. The session ended with Bottas fastest ahead of Hamilton and Verstappen.

Qualifying The start of qualifying was delayed to allow track repairs to be completed. The repairs were deemed necessary after a drain cover came loose at the end of the final practice session.

Qualifying classification DriverConstructorQ1Q2Q3144 Lewis HamiltonMercedes1:16.8281:16.8241:16.6521277 Valtteri BottasMercedes1:16.9451:16.4661:16.7542333 Max VerstappenRed Bull Racing-Honda1:16.8791:17.0381:16.9043416 Charles LeclercFerrari1:17.4211:17.3671:17.0904511 Sergio Pérez Racing Point-BWT Mercedes1:17.3701:17.1291:17.2235623 Alexander AlbonRed Bull Racing-Honda1:17.4351:17.4111:17.4376755 Carlos Sainz Jr.McLaren-Renault1:17.6271:17.1831:17.520784 Lando NorrisMcLaren-Renault1:17.5471:17.3211:17.5258910 Pierre GaslyAlphaTauri-Honda1:17.2091:17.3671:17.8039103 Daniel RicciardoRenault1:17.6211:17.481No time101131 Esteban OconRenault1:17.7751:17.614N/A111218 Lance StrollRacing Point-BWT Mercedes1:17.6671:17.626N/A121326 Daniil KvyatAlphaTauri-Honda1:17.8411:17.728N/A131463 George RussellWilliams-Mercedes1:17.9311:17.788N/A14155 Sebastian VettelFerrari1:17.4461:17.919N/A15167 Kimi RäikkönenAlfa Romeo Racing-Ferrari1:18.201N/AN/A161799Alfa Romeo Racing-Ferrari1:18.323N/AN/A17188 Romain GrosjeanHaas-Ferrari1:18.364N/AN/A181920 Kevin MagnussenHaas-Ferrari1:18.508N/AN/A19206 Nicholas LatifiWilliams-Mercedes1:18.777N/AN/A20107% time: 1:22.205Source:

Race On the first lap, Pérez and Verstappen made contact, forcing the former to pit and dropping him down the order. Pérez would eventually recover to finish seventh. The opening few laps of the race were chaotic as the drivers who started on the medium tyres (Hamilton, Bottas, and Leclerc) fell behind those who started on the soft tyre, and so after the second lap Sainz was leading the race from seventh on the grid until being passed by the faster cars from lap 6 onwards. On lap 18, Stroll tried to pass Norris around the outside of turn 1, but Stroll misjudged the manoeuvre and collided with Norris resulting in a 5-second penalty for Stroll.

Hamilton took his 92nd race win, passing seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher's record for most Grand Prix wins. He finished ahead of his teammate Bottas by 25.592s, the second-biggest winning margin of the season, and Verstappen in 3rd position, making his 40th appearance on the podium.

Race classification DriverConstructorTime/RetiredPoints144 Lewis HamiltonMercedes661:29:56.828126277 Valtteri BottasMercedes66 +25.592218333 Max VerstappenRed Bull Racing-Honda66 +34.508315416 Charles LeclercFerrari66 +1:05.312412510 Pierre GaslyAlphaTauri-Honda65 +1 lap910655 Carlos Sainz Jr.McLaren-Renault65 +1 lap78711 Sergio Pérez Racing Point-BWT Mercedes65 +1 lap56831 Esteban OconRenault65 +1 lap11493 Daniel RicciardoRenault65 +1 lap102105 Sebastian VettelFerrari65 +1 lap151117 Kimi RäikkönenAlfa Romeo Racing-Ferrari65 +1 lap161223 Alexander AlbonRed Bull Racing-Honda65 +1 lap6134 Lando NorrisMcLaren-Renault65 +1 lap81463 George RussellWilliams-Mercedes65 +1 lap141599Alfa Romeo Racing-Ferrari65 +1 lap171620 Kevin MagnussenHaas-Ferrari65 +1 lap19178 Romain GrosjeanHaas-Ferrari65 +1 lap18186 Nicholas LatifiWilliams-Mercedes64 +2 laps201926 Daniil KvyatAlphaTauri-Honda64 +2 laps13 18 Lance StrollRacing Point-BWT Mercedes5112Fastest lap: Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) – 1:18.750 (lap 63)Source: Notes – Includes one point for fastest lap. – Romain Grosjean finished 16th on the track, but received a five-second time penalty for exceeding track limits.

Championship standings after the race

Drivers' Championship standings Driver Points1 Lewis Hamilton*256 2 Valtteri Bottas*1793 Max Verstappen*1624 Daniel Ricciardo80 35 Charles Leclerc75Source:

Constructors' Championship standings Constructor Points1 Mercedes*435 2 Red Bull Racing-Honda*226 3 Racing Point-BWT Mercedes126 4 McLaren-Renault124 5 Renault120Source:

Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings. Competitors in bold and marked with an asterisk still had a mathematical chance of winning the Championship.

Notes

References

External links