Disappointment and happiness
After a chaotic end to the race, there was great disappointment for Lando Norris. He relinquished the lead at the last minute after opting to stay on the slicks, allowing Lewis Hamilton to take his 100th win. The rain also gave Max Verstappen the chance to limit the damage of his grid penalties at the end. These are the reactions to the 2021 GP of Russia from the protagonists of the exciting race.
Max Verstappen
‘I am very happy that I came second. If you’d told me that this morning, I wouldn’t have believed you. Fortunately, we went from the slicks to the intermediates at the perfect time. We could have lost a lot more points today. Because of the track conditions it was very difficult to overtake.’
Lewis Hamilton
‘It is unbelievable. I have to say a big thank you to my team today. We had great pit stops, good strategy and they never gave up in this difficult battle. I am grateful for that. That 100th victory took a while, but that’s also because our opponents are bloody fast.’
Carlos Sainz
“This is a good podium, but as a team we need to analyze what we can do better if we are in the lead. Overall it was a good result. We had a perfect start and went around the outside at Lando. Then we did good tire management on the hard tires, which allowed us to go faster at the end.’
Lando Norris
‘I’m not really happy right now. I could have won the race and I didn’t. The choices were made and they turned out to be the wrong ones. We still scored some points and Ricciardo had a good result, so we still had a decent day as a team.
If it had stayed dry, I am convinced I would have won the race. Everything was under control, even when it was still drizzling a bit. No one told me it was going to rain harder, so that’s why I stayed on slicks. It went so well and that’s why it feels even worse now.’
F1 Championship standings after the 2021 GP of Russia
1 | Lewis Hamilton | 246.5 | |
2 | Max Verstappen | 244.5 | |
3 | Valtteri Bottas | 151 | |
4 | Lando Norris | 139 | |
5 | Sergio Perez | 120 | |
6 | Carlos Sainz Jr. | 112.5 | |
7 | Charles Leclerc | 104 | |
8 | Daniel Ricciardo | 95 | |
9 | Pierre Gasly | 66 | |
10 | Fernando Alonso | 58 | |
11 | Esteban Ocon | 45 | |
12 | Sebastian Vettel | 35 | |
13 | Lance Stroll | 24 | |
14 | Yuki Tsunoda | 18 | |
15 | George Russell | 16 | |
16 | Nicholas Latific | 7 | |
17 | Kimi Raikkonen | 6 | |
18 | Antonio Giovinazzi | 1 | |
19 | Mick Schumacher | 0 | |
20 | Robert Kubica | 0 | |
21 | Nikita Mazepin | 0 |