In The Driver’s Seat

F1 gods smile on Ocon for popular win

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Okay, we know what a key part Valtteri Bottas' inadvertent game of bowling played in the outcome of the Hungarian Grand Prix, when on the wet track he took himself, Lando Norris, Sergio Perez, Charles Leclerc and Lance Stroll out in the first corner, and crippled championship leader Max Verstappen's Red Bull.

And that a terrible strategic blunder by Mercedes had induced Lewis Hamilton to be the sole runner to take to the grid in the restart as everybody else made for the pits to switch from intermediate rain tyres to slicks. Mercedes had told their man that more rain was expected, and his belief in them proved to be his undoing as his stop at the end of the first lap left him at the back.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on August 03, 2021, with the headline In The Driver’s Seat: F1 gods smile on Ocon for popular win. Subscribe