Lewis Hamilton has taken his first win of the 2020 season with teammate Valtteri Bottas in second to make it one-two for Mercedes. Though he never had a true chance of fighting for the win Max Verstappen took the final step on the podium for Red Bull.

A severe rainstorm nearly saw the cancellation of Saturday qualifying but fortunately a break in the weather allowed the session to go ahead. In extremely difficult conditions all driver performed brilliantly but none were as dazzling as Lewis Hamilton who secured pole position by a staggering 1.2 seconds over Verstappen.

After qualifying tenth and eleventh for the second race in a row it didn’t seem like it could get worse for Ferrari. But it did as Charles Leclerc was given a three-place grid penalty for ignoring yellow flags in qualifying. It dropped the Monegasque driver to fourteenth on the grid from which he never recovered. A cautious start from Vettel saw him side by side-by-side into turn 3 with the Racing Point of Sergio Perez and George Russell’s Williams. In what can only described as a rush of blood to the head Leclerc shoved his Ferrari up the inside of Vettel, clunked across the inside kerb, and destroyed the rear-wing of his teammate’s car. The incident, which was far too optimistic, ended both Ferrari drivers’ races. It also accounted for the only safety car period of the race.

Daniel Ricciardo and Esteban Ocon fought briefly on track before Ocon was called into the garage to park his Renault with suspected cooling issues. Up front Hamilton was five seconds in the lead and undoubtedly managing the race. Verstappen and Red Bull rolled the dice with an early stop for the medium tyres but he simply didn’t have the pace to challenge Hamilton. In fact, Verstappen had picked up some front-wing damage, which ultimately left him defenseless against a late charge from Valtteri Bottas. The pair put on an entertaining fight for second place but the Finn was clean through on the next lap with Verstappen unable to do much about it.

While Verstappen was happy enough on the third step of the podium Alex Albon finished fourth in the second Red Bull but the Thai-born driver was significantly off his Dutch teammate’s pace. In fact he just held off a racy Sergio Perez. The Mexican driver attempted a move on the final lap of the race but came away with front-wing damage for his effort.

Enter Lando Norris. Norris didn’t have the pace of last week’s Austrian grand prix but he delivered yet another stunning drive. The young McLaren driver started the final lap of the race in seventh and finished a stunning fifth by the chequered flag delivering yet another stonking final lap. Perez eventually finished sixth while his Racing Point teammate, Lance Stroll made a late lunge on Ricciardo to finish seventh. Behind Ricciardo in eighth was the second McLaren of Carlos Sainz in ninth ahead of Daniil Kvyat who secured the final point in tenth for Alpha Tauri.

It was a ‘run away and hide’ victory for Hamilton but the Brit also held some pace in hand. Formula 1 next heads to the Hungaroring for the third round of the 2020 season this weekend.

All images courtesy of Pirelli Motorsport