Carlos Sainz Passes Bottas For the Lead in a Thrilling Opening Lap at the Portuguese Grand Prix

The race at the Portuguese Grand Prix has got off to an extraordinary start. Both Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton, on the Mediums, never managed to fire up their tires well enough. This just let Mclaren’s Carlos Sainz take the lead in the race.

This has been an unexpected start to the race.

However, Sainz faced none of those problems as he swooped past both the Mercedes. Now, with cleaner air, he will be trying to get as much gap as possible from the mid-field teams beyond Red Bull’s Max Verstappen. This is because Mclaren will be aware of the fact that their race is with Renault and Racing Point.

With Sergio Perez, too, way off in P20 after the incident with Max, Sainz could manage to get his team enough points to get past the Racing Point on the constructors’ table.

Carlos Sainz Struggling despite the blistering start

Sainz had a dream start to the race in Portugal as he managed to steal the lead from both the Mercedes.

Sainz would have been happy with the P4. However, Charles Leclerc and Pierre Gasly, with the better tire condition, got themselves ahead of the struggling Spaniard.

Even then, it wouldn’t be fair to say that Sainz’s fight for the top 4 is over. Considering there are still more than 40 laps to go, he could still get himself back into a decent enough.

Hence, despite the few sets of disappointing laps, he still would be looking ahead at the provisional 12 points that could be waiting for him at the checkered flag.

Overall, irrespective of where Sainz finishes in the race, he would still want to take a look at that lightning start he had after seeing the checkered flag to the Portuguese Grand Prix.