PORTIMAO (Portugal) • Lewis Hamilton delivered a flawless drive in his Mercedes after an enthralling fight to take the lead in the opening half of the race to win the Portuguese Grand Prix yesterday.

The seven-time world champion had to pass title rival Max Verstappen of Red Bull and teammate Valtteri Bottas to claim a record-extending 97th win.

With that, he stretched his Formula One lead over Verstappen to eight points after three races.

Verstappen finished second at the Algarve circuit with Bottas completing the podium, and taking a bonus point for the fastest lap, after starting from pole position.

Verstappen's Mexican teammate Sergio Perez was fourth.

The victory was Hamilton's second of the year and repeated his win at the same circuit last season.

"That was such a tough race, physically and mentally, just keeping everything together. It was very windy out there, so it was very easy to put a foot wrong," said Hamilton, who started on the front row.

"I just didn't quite get as good a start as Valtteri and then lost out on the restart, which was not good. I was not happy about that."

The safety car was deployed on lap two after the Alfa Romeos of Kimi Raikkonen and Antonio Giovinazzi made contact, with debris left on the track and the field streaming through the pit lane.

When racing resumed, Verstappen pounced to pass Hamilton for second place but the Briton seized back the position five laps later.

He then swept past Bottas on track on lap 20 of 66 and took the chequered flag 29.148 seconds clear of Verstappen after the Dutch driver pitted in a bid for the fastest lap on fresh, soft tyres.

"I had to make the move early on before the tyres were destroyed and managed to just get him in Turn One," said Hamilton of the key overtake before his pit stop. "Right on the limit, but great race."

Perez and Bottas both pitted in the closing laps to try and bag the bonus point.

Verstappen thought he had it but his lap time was deleted for going wide, with former racer Paul di Resta breaking the bad news in the post-race interviews. The only consolation was that it did not go to Hamilton.

"My race was pretty decent," the Dutchman said.

"I had a good restart and then of course, I tried to put the pressure on Valtteri.

"At the end, I think we just lacked a little bit of pace but overall, Lewis got by again and once after the pit stop, the warm-up is super hard on these tyres."

Verstappen is already looking forward to next weekend's race in Spain.

"We were not on top of it here but we'll see what we can do in Barcelona," said the 23-year-old.

Hamilton, Verstappen and Bottas shared the podium for a 15th time - more than any trio in F1 history.

McLaren's Lando Norris was fifth with Charles Leclerc sixth for Ferrari, followed by Alpine pairing Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso. Australian Daniel Ricciardo finished ninth for McLaren, after starting 16th, and Pierre Gasly took the final point for AlphaTauri.

For Bottas, it was a missed opportunity to win his first race since last year's Russian Grand Prix.

He said: "I don't really know what happened in the first stint. I didn't have the pace for unknown reasons. After that, the second stint was pretty good but there was some issue with a sensor or something."

REUTERS