Max Splits The Mercedes At The Portuguese Grand Prix
Red Bull Racing Honda leaves Portugal with 30 points after a strong run in the Portuguese Grand Prix saw Max finishing second and Sergio fourth.
Starting from the second row, Max held third place while Sergio dropped to fifth behind Carlos Sainz, but the race was quickly neutralised due to an incident for Kimi Raikkonen. After five laps behind the Safety Car, Max made an excellent restart to take second place from Lewis Hamilton into Turn 1 and set off after leader Valtteri Bottas.
While Sergio instantly passed Sainz he then lost out to Lando Norris a few corners later, so remained in fifth, while Pierre ran just inside the top ten and Yuki kept himself out of trouble in the midfield.
Max suffered a snap of oversteer at the end of lap 10 and Hamilton was able to move ahead into Turn 1, going on to take the lead and leaving Max still chasing Bottas but now in third. Five laps later and Sergio was up to fourth after getting ahead of Norris, although having lost ten seconds to the top three as a result.
Yuki had two warnings for exceeding track limits but adjusted his driving to start trying to make progress, passing George Russell down the inside of Turn 5 to move up to 15th place before pitting for hard tyres on lap 15.
Scuderia AlphaTauri went for a different strategy for Pierre, switching from softs to mediums on lap 24, going for a long second stint on that compound.
Max was close behind Bottas for lap after lap and Red Bull eventually went for the undercut on lap 35, putting on hard tyres. Mercedes responded a lap later and although Bottas emerged ahead, Max was able to clear the Finn on the run to Turn 5 to take a net second place.
Sergio ran long to take the lead as Hamilton stopped, but after dropping to second again he finally stopped with 15 laps to go and was able to put on soft tyres. In a comfortable fourth place, Sergio held the fastest lap for a spell before very late stops from Bottas and Max - on lap 63 and 64 respectively - saw both try and score the extra point.
Max posted the quicker time by 0.016s on his final lap but was unfortunate to see it deleted for exceeding track limits at the penultimate corner, leaving him with 18 points for second place while Sergio came home safely in fourth.
Pierre dropped out of the points briefly as he struggled on his medium tyres towards the end of the race but then regrouped and pulled a good move on Sainz at Turn 1 on the penultimate lap to regain 10th place and score the final championship point. Yuki gained more valuable experience as he crossed the line in 15th.