The big question post-race was whether Red Bull should have taken the gamble of leaving Verstappen out instead of pitting him to make sure he finished the race and go for the bonus of one point for fastest lap.
When a driver says he is happy to finish second, as Verstappen did, some would say that means he is the first loser. And losers don't win races, let alone championships. But then you could also say, better to be safe than sorry, in which case Red Bull made the right decision.
Team boss Christian Horner is adamant bringing Verstappen in was the right choice.
"We had vibrations, we saw Bottas' puncture, we could see we'd got a big groove on our tyre, so we elected to pit and put the soft on, try to bag the point for fastest lap as well," Horner explained.
"The tyre that's come off Max's car has actually got a deep groove and quite a lot of lacerations on it as well, so there's no guarantee that he would've got to the end of the race, and then it would've been a completely different story again. Lewis rode his luck and they had a great car today and he managed to get it home. Second place is still a very good result for us."
As a sign of his growing maturity, Verstappen philosophically accepted second place was good enough and didn't criticise his team for pitting him for fresh tyres, even though with the benefit of hindsight, he would likely have won the race had he gambled like Hamilton and stayed out. He expected to finish third, and actually finished second, so the end result will seem like a bonus.
But given Hamilton is all but guaranteed to win a seventh championship, Red Bull had nothing to lose by taking a gamble.
"I mean it's lucky and unlucky, you know," Verstappen tried to convince interviewer David Coulthard. "They [Mercedes] were of course in the race too quick. And yeah, the tyres at one point they didn't look great, with like 10 laps to go, so I was already on the radio [to say] ,'guys, you know, the right front doesn't look very pretty.'
"Then of course Valtteri got a puncture. I came on the radio like I'm gonna back it out, then they boxed me to go for the fastest lap. And then of course, unfortunately, Lewis got a puncture himself. But as you know, I'm very happy with second. It's a good result for us again."
Hamilton was cruising to victory when Bottas had a puncture, and then he began to worry about his own tyre situation.
"Up until that last lap everything was relatively smooth sailing," Hamilton said. "Valtteri was really pushing incredibly hard, I was doing some management of the tyre. When I heard his went I looked at mine and it seemed fine. The car was turning no problem, last few laps I started to back off and then last lap it deflated."
"That was a heart in the mouth moment. You could see it falling off the rim. From then on I was just managing it and I was just praying to get around and not be too slow. I didn't think I would make it round the last two corners."
"Maybe we should have stopped once we saw the delaminations."
If may seem unkind to call him "Lucky Lewis", but the fact is that since joining Mercedes in 2013, Hamilton has raced 144 times for the team and only retired from eight of those races. His last race retirement was in Austria in 2018.
They say you make your own luck, but having a car that is 1 second a lap faster than the opposition, and more reliable, is the reason Mercedes has yielded 66 victories for Hamilton, not to mention five championships. His first title came with McLaren in 2008, and his other 21 victories were with McLaren. With this being victory number 87, he is just four behind Michael Schumacher's record of 91.
Notwithstanding his runaway success, Hamilton insists that he thrives on racing "wheel- to-wheel', or you could now say, three wheels to four, after his latest success.
"Honestly, look, I'm a through and through racer at heart," he said.
"I've grown up, particularly when you're in karting, you've got the wheel to wheel racing. I definitely…this is not the championship fight I would have hoped for.
"I'd much, much prefer to having a super-close battle with these two here because that's what gets me going," he added, referring to Verstappen, and Charles Leclerc who finished a "lucky" third for Ferrari, seated at social distance from him in the post-race press conference.
"I really hope that in the future it's closer."
The dominance of Mercedes is once again turning the races into a procession. Had it not been for the last two laps of drama thanks to the tyre situation, which Pirelli will investigate to find the cause, it would have been another easy Mercedes 1-2 finish. Renault driver Daniel Ricciardo was a beneficiary of the tyre woes that took Bottas and Sainz out of the points, finishing fourth, but he has nothing but admiration for the way Mercedes continues to dominate.
"I feel like I've been on the side of taking my hat off to them and putting the [onus] on everyone else to find out what they're doing and to work a little harder or in another direction," he said via RaceFans.Net.
"You can't be bitter, they are doing a great job."
But Ricciardo was not too complimentary about the driving of Haas driver Romain Grosjean in the race. Grosjean tried to block Ricciardo as he was overtaking him, a movement the Aussie described as "sketchy" while Sainz who felt he too was nearly a victim of Grosjean's blocking move, called him "dangerous."
Former F1 driver Mark Webber says Grosjean is "moving around very late in defending" and is "weaving in the middle of the road at high speed."
"He's mentioned how Max Verstappen was in the past, and that is in the past, we have moved on," Webber noted. "He's the chairman of the GPDA (Grand Prix Drivers' Association). He should know the rules. For me, Grosjean is borderline out of his depth in Formula 1."
Some would say those comments also apply to Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen. Both qualified poorly and raced even worse. Vettel started and finished P9, complaining the car was difficult to drive, yet Ferrari teammate Leclerc qualified fourth, ran fourth, and finished third.
"If I struggle for so many laps in the race-from the beginning to the end - then there's something that doesn't stack up," Vettel claimed. "People around me were faster than me, I got overtaken, it was very difficult to stay on track, so physically it wasn't a tough race at all because I couldn't attack."
Alpha Tauri driver Danii Kvyat couldn't stay on track, ploughing off at Maggots after admitting he was distracted changing a lot of switches on his steering wheel. His teammate Pierre Gasly finished seventh, just ahead of Alex Albon, the driver who replaced Gasly at Red Bull last year. After punting Kevin Magunssen off on the first lap and incurring a 5-second penalty, Red Bull adviser Helmut Marko may end up replacing the replacee.
If this race was scripted as a movie, it wouldn't be a thriller, rather a drama with some tragedy. The opening sequence was Racing Point driver Sergio Perez testing positive for coronavirus after visiting his sick mother in Mexico, and being replaced by former Renault driver, Nico Hulkenberg.
He qualified 13th, but the car must have caught the virus, because it wouldn't start and he missed the race.
Without the antics of Grosjean, Kvyat and Albon, it would have been a dreary, forgettable race, but the last lap tyre drama helped make it an epic, at least for the all-conquering Hamilton, who took to twitter to describe his feelings.
"Today was so intense! But it's a day I'll remember forever. Thank you all so much for your positive energy. #EndRacism."
He will likely make it win number 88 this weekend in the sequel, called the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix. Verstappen and Leclerc were asked if anyone could stop Hamilton winning the championship.
"No", said Verstappen. "No. I think the guy that has some chance is Valtteri," said Leclerc, "but that's it.
