The third round of the FIA Formula 1 World Championship sees the sport travel to Portugal for the Portimao Grand Prix for the second time in two seasons. Last year’s GP was the first time that Portugal had hosted an F1 race since the 1996 season, where 1997 World Champion Jacques Villeneuve of Williams-Renault won the race.
Lewis Hamilton won last year’s Portimao Grand Prix which will go down in folklore, as the British driver broke Michael Schumacher’s all-time record of 91 race wins on his way to equalling the German’s record of seven world titles, the most in F1 history.
Last year’s race was a dramatic one, due to the rain at the start of the Grand Prix, which saw drastic changes to the grid following two laps of pure drama, as Carlos Sainz who had qualified in seventh in the McLaren-Renault managed to take the lead from Valtteri Bottas who had managed to overtake Hamilton.
However, Sainz was soon caught up by the quicker cars in the race by lap six and the predictable podium of the 2020 season in Hamilton, Bottas and Max Verstappen was soon re-united, with the Stevenage born driver lapping everyone up to fourth place, with Charles LeClerc in the Ferrari finishing one minute and five seconds behind the Mercedes GP driver, 13 seconds away from being lapped.