Race Review: Spain

Spain, whilst not the most exciting race, produced some great racing moments. The weekend was hosted at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in Montmeló, which is roughly 30 minutes outside of Barcelona. The track has many memorable moments, from the 1991 Senna Mansell duel and 1994 Schumacher podium, after only having 5th gear for the majority of the race. The circuit is 4.675 km (2.905 miles) long, with 16 turns and the cars completing 66 laps of the track during the race.

Qualifying saw Hamilton taking the 100th poll of his career, a huge record in the sport as it puts him 32 polls ahead of Michael Schumacher who is 2nd place in the ranking. The driver commented on the record, saying ‘"Who would have thought at the end of 2012 when we made the decision to partner, we'd be qualifying at 100. I feel humble and grateful - it's like my first!’.

Russell’s Williams made it into Q2 for the 3rd time season, with Ricciardo improving hugely on last weeks qualifying performance, out-qualifying his teammate Norris to take P7. The Ferraris also had a great weekend, with Leclerc qualifying P4 and Sainz P6 after Ocon had a brilliant qualifying session, showing the Alpine's pace and putting him on P5 of the grid for Sunday.

Qualifying finished as follows: Hamilton P1, Verstappen P2, Bottas P3, Leclerc P4, Ocon P5, Sainz P6, Ricciardo P7, Perez P8, Norris P9, Alonso P10, Stroll P11, Gasly P12, Vettel P13, Giovinazzi P14, Russel P15, Tsunoda P16, Räikkönen P17, Schumacher P18, Latifi P19 and Mazepin P20.

Mazepin received a 3-place grid penalty and one licence point for not getting out of Norris’ way during the Brit’s hot lap in Q1, however, you cannot move three places down when you are already at the back of the grid…

2.06 pm (BST) saw lights out at the track. All the cars got away nicely but coming out of the first turn, Verstappen got around the right side of Hamilton, forcing the Mercedes wide and took P1. Bottas dropped to P4, with Leclerc taking P3 and Ricciardo taking P5 with Perez into P6. The standing remained fairly stable for the next few laps, however by Lap 4, Race Control opened an investigation into Gasly for being out of position at the start of the race, this is usually a slam dunk penalty. By Lap 6, Hamilton and Verstappen were pulling away from the rest of the pack however a yellow flag in Lap 8, after Tsunoda’s engine stopped, was a blow to Verstappen and his advantage.

The safety car came in at the end of Lap 10, which saw an incredibly slow pit for Giovinazzi after his pit team notices a puncture in the front left tyre as it was going on and Williams double stacking their cars. The only position swap down the straight was Stroll overtaking Alonso. A 5-second penalty was confirmed for Gasly’s start violation which he served during his pit stop in Lap 19. In Lap 22, we saw the cars start to box, Out of the top cars, Bottas came in first in Lap 25 with Verstappen turning into the pits at the last minute in Lap 26, almost unexpectedly as the team did not seem prepared, losing vital seconds. Hamilton stayed out until Lap 29. There was a lot of traffic from the midfield down, which saw Mazepin not moving out of the way in time (again) for Hamilton in Lap 34. Lap 36 saw the battle between Hamilton and Verstappen continue with Norris moving up into 9th in Lap 37.

In a surprising move, Hamilton boxed again on Lap 44, using their extra set of mediums. It was going to come down to the battle of the strategy. The tension built in the next few laps, with Verstappen putting in a radio message saying he is worried about the tyres.

Sainz passed his former teammate Norris to take P8 in Lap 50. Hamilton made his way back up the standings however got stuck behind Bottas for a minute, despite the team saying that Bottas should not hold him up; this was going to make for an interesting team conversation when Bottas finished the race. After an overtake, from Hamilton, Bottas then pit in an attempt to go for the fastest lap. This resulted in him overtaking Leclerc in Lap 58.

In Lap 60, Hamilton overtook Verstappen and it seemed very unlikely that the Dutchman would be able to fight for the position back as his tyres were significantly older. Lap 61 saw a great battle for 10th between Alonso, Stoll, Gasly, Räikkönen and Vettel with Gasly taking the points position during Lap 63. Verstappen realised he was not going to win and pitting during Lap 64 to try and get the extra point for the fastest lap, which he managed to do.

Hamilton crossed the line to take his 98th race win. Verstappen came in at P2, Bottas P3, Leclerc P4, Perez P5, Ricciardo P6, Sainz P7, Norris P8, Ocon P9, Gasly P10, Stroll P11, Räikkönen P12, Vettel P13, Russell P14, Giovinazzi P15, Latifi P16, Alonso P17, Schumacher P18, Mazepin P19 and Tsunoda DNF.

Driver Of The Day: Leclerc

Leclerc had a brilliant race. At the race start, he pushed Bottas to take P3 where he remained for most of the race, driving excellently and pushing around the circuit so well. Sadly, Bottas did catch him but a P4 from the driver is incredibly exciting, particularly going into his home race at Monaco in two weekends time. The Monégasque driver was so pleased with the 'standout' and 'amazing' race from the Ferrari team.

Crash Of The Day: Tsunoda

With the race producing no crashes, this has to go to Tsunoda for having to retire from the race during Lap 8 after his engine stopped working at Turn 10. This caused a yellow flag as the driver was still partly on the track, however, he was uncharacteristically calm after 24 hours of backlash in the media over how he behaves.

Overtake Of The Day: Verstappen

Verstappen's overtake of Hamilton at the race start, coming out of Turn 1 was a great one. To quote the commentators 'he got his elbow out there', pushing Hamilton wide and overtaking him, driving off ahead; luckily there was no contact! It was a fab overtake from an exciting race start, which you can watch here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZCDj44bnVY

Biggest Heartbreak: Verstappen

On his 100th race for Red Bull, it seemed like Verstappen was going to win. After a beautiful start and managing to battle the Mercedes for most of the race, the driver must be disappointed that he was unable to maintain the lead. In the end, the Mercedes strategy won out.

Best Radio Comment: Toto Wolff

This week, the best radio comment is going to a team principal, not a driver. The Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff got onto the radio with Race Control. He said “Michael, blue flags’ after Mazepin did not move out of Hamilton’s way quick enough. Whilst this isn’t as funny as some radios from previous races, it’s always amusing to hear Mercedes complaining to Race Control, particularly on the radio.

Race Takeaways

A main takeaway from the race is how key team strategy. By pitting Hamilton another time, Mercedes gave themselves a huge advantage on the new tyres. Surely the race strategists at Red Bull are kicking themselves, if they had pitted Max again immediately after Hamilton darted in, then they may have been walking away with P1 this weekend.

Moreover, the pace on Ferraris is incredibly positive. The team qualified are raced very well, particularly Charles Leclerc who shot into P3 at the race start. Sainz is also new to the team and is still getting comfortable with the car so it will be very exciting to see what he can do going forward. Furthermore, the pace and talent that Leclerc has are undeniable. The changes in regulations for next season are likely to mix it up in terms of which cars are competitive, so if Ferrari can get it sorted, imagine what could happen with Leclerc in a car that can challenge for the title.

Russell also had a good weekend. He made it into Q2 and qualified P15, which is very encouraging, particularly when a Haas out-qualified his teammate Latifi. At one point during the race, the Brit was challenging for P10 however very sadly slipped down the rankings in the last laps to finish a respectful P14.

Bottas seems to be racing more for himself. This may not be a terrible thing, however, he did ignore the team's call to make sure he did not hold Hamilton up. In a post-race interview, he commented on the situation, saying 'I was doing my own race as well, so I was always calculating things' mentioning trying to keep Leclerc out of the pit window so he could pit again. But, Hamilton didn't seem to mind too much as he was unaware that Bottas had been given a message and assumed that they were racing each other. This comes after multiple stories in the press about Bottas and potentially being switched out of the seat midseason. Whilst Toto Wolff has denied these rumours, there has always been a narrative of Bottas as the 2nd driver; this must have played on Bottas' mind when asked to not hold Hamilton up. There surely had to be a very interesting and heated conversation between Bottas and his team principal upon returning to the garage.....

Another big takeaway from this weekend is that Mazepin needs to learn how to get out of the way. Twice he got in the way of other drivers this weekend. The first time was in Q1 when he blocked Norris' hot lap and the second time was during the race where he didn't get out of Hamilton's way despite a blue flag. The Russian driver has seen penalties for the same thing at previous races, so needs to sort out his actions going forward.

Another Rookie that seems to be having some issues is Yuki Tsunoda. He keeps having angry outbursts, and this weekend saw him do it to the press, saying that the issue is with the car and implying that the team gives all the good parts to Gasly. This is after many explicit outbursts over the team radio, with his race engineer having to tell him to calm down in FP3. It has got to the point where previous drivers such as Button and Ericsson have commented on the interview and his behaviour. Ericsson wrote on Twitter that the Japanese driver is ‘acting like a kid that doesn’t get his candy’ and Button said whilst commentating that if he wants to stay in the sport, he ‘can’t speak about the car like that or speak about the team like that’. Franz Tost will not have been happy with the way that Yuki acted….

Next up is the historic track of Monaco. The glitz and glam of the race is always hugely enjoyable so see you in two weekends time!