Max Verstappen has beaten his Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez to win the Spanish Grand Prix. The Dutchman took the lead when the team instructed Perez to release Verstappen in the final quarter of the race, much to the annoyance of the Mexican, allowing him to take the lead of the championship.
Verstappen’s race though wasn’t without problems an intermittent DRS issue appeared to frustrate the Red Bull driver in the early part of the race, before switching to a three-stop strategy. An uncharacteristic spin dropped him down behind the Mercedes of George Russell in the middle part of the race, before he went onto victory.
Verstappen’s championship rival Charles Leclerc was forced to retire with an “unidentified” engine failure, he looked to have a comfortable lead and led until his retirement on lap thirty.
The Monacan looking as if he could have gone after the grand slam, having dominated and looked very competitive all weekend. He bemoaned “no! No! No Power!” as he was called into retire after converting pole into a decent lead by lap twenty-seven. He held the start and that was key in his early lead.
That paved the way for a Red Bull one-two, although there was frustration for Perez who was told to switch positions with Verstappen in the closing stages. The race could be a pivotal moment in the early phase of the North American-European season, as Verstappen moved into the drivers and Red Bull in the constructors.
Russell had fought hard to hold off Verstappen during the early phase, of the race as the Mercedes looked very competitive on track being in the mix for victory early on. But the Englishman had to settle for third thirty-three seconds off the lead and ahead of the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz.
However, the Englishman was instructed in the closing stages not to put up a fight against Sainz after they detected a water leak on both Mercedes. The Spaniard breezed past on the main straight thanks to the aid of DRS, to pass Hamilton on the penultimate lap.
Perez had a decent pace out in front but it was clear Verstappen was much faster behind. As he showed pace on fresher tyres in the late stages, Red Bull had a decision to make. He appeared disgruntled by the use of team orders to allow Verstappen to lead, while still only a quarter of the way into the season, the team appear to believe the Dutchman is the man to beat Leclerc.
Verstappen said “That made it very tough, but we managed to get ahead again and do our own race, and eventually win the race. It was a difficult beginning, but a good end. I tried to stay focused; of course, it’s not nice when stuff like that happens, but I’m very happy to win and very happy for Checo [team-mate Perez]. It was a great result for the team.”
Mercedes delivered a step up in performance, Hamilton finishing fifth despite a frustrating opening-lap collision with the Haas of Kevin Magnussen with him gaining a puncher as he tried to overtake a Repsol. Both drivers dropped to the back of the field before the Englishman put in an excellent recovery drive to fifth.
Hamilton had been towards the back for much of the race but when in clear air in the second half showed impressive speed and found himself up in sixth after his third and final pit stop.
Speaking about the performance this weekend, CEO and team principal Toto Wolff said “It’s always the call when you’ve lost the race to decide what is the benefit of continuing. From a driver’s perspective you know ‘that can’t be possible, I’m 50 seconds behind the leaders’, but we are never giving up anyway. In the end, the race pace was tidy. He would have raced for the win.”
Hamilton had been running fourth until in the closing stages, however concerns about reliability saw Mercedes instruct him to not fend off Sainz. The Spaniard got past on the penultimate lap after losing the position a few laps earlier. It was a much stronger weekend for the Silver Arrows, who have appeared to have closed the gap in performance to Red Bull and Ferrari.
A decent recovery from Sainz who had a difficult start to his home race, at the start the Ferrari went into anti-stall dropping him to fifth before a few laps into the race he made an error spinning the car at Repsol, which dropped him further down to eleventh. Sainz was unable to recover as strongly as he would have liked as he got caught out by the gusts of wind damaging the floor losing downforce.
Verstappen would make a similar error, while it didn’t, in the end, cost the Red Bull driver, at the time it looked as if victory had slipped away as it dropped him behind Leclerc, Russell and Perez. While he had better pace than the Mercedes the intermittent DRS issues left him behind Russell at that phase of the race.
Leclerc meanwhile will be looking to bounce back at his home race in Monte Carlo in a week’s time the car looked strong in the slow and medium corners.
Valtteri Bottas delivered another solid drive for Alfa Romeo, the Finn finishing sixth, five seconds behind Hamilton. At one stage a bold move to a two stop strategy looked as if it could have gained him a podium, however, the heat in Barcelona turned the race largely into a three stop, as his tyres declined in the latter stages it allowed his former teammate to pass.
Esteban Ocon finished seventh ahead of Lando Norris by seven seconds, the final two drivers on the lead lap. Norris’s result came despite the McLaren driver feeling unwell and following the race was checked over by the teams doctor. Fernando Alonso pulled off a brilliant race to finish ninth having lost out in qualifying finishing three seconds ahead of Yuki Tsunoda.
Sebastian Vettel pulled of a similar recovery drive to Alonso, the four-time champion’s Aston Martin team losing all contact with the car. He finished fifteen seconds ahead of former teammate Daniel Ricciardo and the Alpha Tauri of Pierre Gasly.
Gasly was given a five-second penalty for contact with Stroll at the first corner on lap twenty-eight, that put the Canadian into a spin through both drivers were able to continue. Mick Schumacher‘s two-stop strategy didn’t see him convert tenth into his first points, the German dropping to fourteenth.
Nicolas Latifi finished sixteenth ahead of Kevin Magnussen, the Haas driver splitting the two Williams drivers finish forty-two seconds ahead of Alex Albon. Albon was later given a five second penalty for exceeding track limits.
Guanyu Zhou was the final retirement just before half distance, it looking as if he suffered a similar engine failure to Leclerc.
Related
- Spanish GP – Qualifying Result
- SPANISH GP – Charles Leclerc continues to set pace beating Max Verstappen to pole by three tenths
- SPANISH GP – Charles Leclerc continues to set the pace in FP2, ahead of the two Mercedes
- SPANISH GP – Charles Leclerc sets the pace in first practice eight hundredths ahead of teammate Carlos Sainz
- PRIXVIEW – Spanish Grand Prix
