FIA F1, race#4 ARAMCO Spanish GP: Hamilton's - Mercedes third victory of the season in Spain and Leclerc, Ferrari P4 , Carlos Sainz P6 ! - NAANII GLOBAL Luxury/Quality Family Lifestyle MAGAZINE 'en Vogue' - NAANII GLOBAL Quality & Luxury Family Lifestyle - MAGAZINE 'en Vogue'-

Late pass secures Hamilton victory in Spain after race-long battle with Verstappen

Winner Lewis Hamilton - Mercedes:
“It had been the plan all weekend for us to make sure we had two mediums to be able to do a two-stop. Even though a one-stop potentially looked better, I know from experience here that a one-stop is very, very hard to pull off.
“I was about to kind of, I think, have a shot at getting past Max before I pitted right at the end and I was really conflicted, like, do I come in or do ignore the call and stay out? The team asked and naturally that’s because there’s a great trust between us but it’s a remarkable job by everyone in this team, through and through. What a day” –


An incredible, tense race-long battle between Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton saw Hamilton triumph for his sixth Spanish Grand Prix win, the reigning world champion brilliantly executing a two-stop strategy to claim his third win in four races this season, as Verstappen finished ahead of the second Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas.

Verstappen led the majority of the race after brilliantly snatching the lead from Hamilton into Turn 1 at the start, with Red Bull then committing to a one-stop strategy around the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, as Hamilton opted for two.

But with six laps to go, Hamilton used the superior performance of his newer tyres to pass the Dutchman into Turn 1 and check out for his 98th victory, and fifth straight win at the circuit – Verstappen ultimately deciding to pit for softs once Hamilton was past and go for a consolation fastest lap, which he duly got.

An incredible, tense race-long battle between Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton saw Hamilton triumph for his sixth Spanish Grand Prix win, the reigning world champion brilliantly executing a two-stop strategy to claim his third win in four races this season, as Verstappen finished ahead of the second Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas.

Verstappen led the majority of the race after brilliantly snatching the lead from Hamilton into Turn 1 at the start, with Red Bull then committing to a one-stop strategy around the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, as Hamilton opted for two.

But with six laps to go, Hamilton used the superior performance of his newer tyres to pass the Dutchman into Turn 1 and check out for his 98th victory, and fifth straight win at the circuit – Verstappen ultimately deciding to pit for softs once Hamilton was past and go for a consolation fastest lap, which he duly got.

AS IT HAPPENED
Lewis Hamilton may have secured pole #100 on Saturday – but he admitted ahead of the race that he was uneasy about the prospect of being outdragged at the race start on the 612-metre run down to Turn 1 at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, either by Max Verstappen starting just alongside him in P2, or his Mercedes team mate Valtteri Bottas just behind in P3.

Hamilton’s fears proved well-founded, with Verstappen making a beautiful launch – so good in fact that he didn’t even need a slipstream, hanging onto Hamilton’s flanks down to Turn 1 before aggressively sticking the nose of his RB16B into the corner and forcing Hamilton to back out and concede the position.

Hamilton’s checked momentum at Turn 1 then had a knock-on effect on his team mate Bottas, who was slow out of Turn 2, allowing Charles Leclerc to send a beautiful pass around the outside of the Finn at Turn 3 to take third place.

By the time he crossed the line to start Lap 2, Verstappen’s advantage was already 1.5s over Hamilton, while Esteban Ocon’s fantastic P5 on the grid had become P7 after he was cautious into Turn 1, Daniel Ricciardo jumping up from seventh to P5, as Red Bull’s Sergio Perez overcame his shoulder issues from qualifying to move from eighth into sixth.

Verstappen and Hamilton quickly built up an 8s cushion over the chasing Leclerc, who was holding up Bottas, the Finn having been unable to find his way through when AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda ground to a halt at Turn 10 on Lap 8 – with the race quickly neutralised under a Safety Car as the AT02, whose engine had turned itself off, was craned away.

Antonio Giovinazzi took the opportunity to dive into the pits, but a puncture on the Italian’s prepared tyre set forced the Alfa Romeo mechanics into a change over, keeping Giovinazzi stopped for 35s – while Williams also took the opportunity to doble stack Russell and Latifi and put them on mediums.

Racing resumed on Lap 11, Verstappen doing a brilliant job to resist being outdragged himself by Hamilton into Turn 1, Hamilton actually having to keep his eye on his mirrors instead to prevent an attack from Leclerc behind. Further back, and Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll pulled off a sweet move on Alpine’s Fernando Alonso, holding on around the outside of Turn 4 to claim P10 from the home hero – a pass of which Stroll could be rightly proud.

Verstappen and Hamilton quickly set about building their cushion over Leclerc again – the Ferrari driver still managing to keep Bottas at bay – but there were worries in Hamilton’s cockpit as he radioed in on Lap 18 of 66 that his tyres were going off, his right-rear especially showing signs of blistering.

Despite that, it was Verstappen who blinked first and pitted on Lap 24 – but an uncharacteristically slow stop for Red Bull saw Verstappen stopped for 4.2s with the left-rear tyre not going on smartly. He emerged in P5, but was quickly moved ahead of team mate Perez in front, as Hamilton opted to extend his stint at the front.

Hamilton was brought in four laps after Verstappen on Lap 28 – but while Mercedes’ stop was quicker than Red Bull’s, Verstappen had used the undercut to good effect, with Hamilton exiting a full 6s back from the Dutch driver. Bottas, meanwhile, had been doing his own undercutting, pitting on Lap 23 to Leclerc’s Lap 28, and doing enough to jump the Monegasque in the pit stops and make it back to third, albeit 8s off the fight at the front – while Sainz had also moved past Ocon for P7.

Hamilton was lapping incredible rapidly around the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, cranking the pressure up on Verstappen as he quickly reduced the gap down to around a second – but with the Briton unable to get close enough to try an overtake.

Then on Lap 41, Hamilton rolled the dice, sweeping into the pits and putting on a set of scrubbed medium tyres and rejoining in third. Verstappen was out in front – but he’d been in this position before, with his engineer GianPiero Lambiase warning Verstappen “it could be Hungary all over again” – referring to the 2019 Hungaroring race, where Mercedes out-strategied Red Bull to allow Hamilton to win. It would prove to be a prescient call from the Red Bull pit wall...

With 15 laps to go, Verstappen was 9s clear of Bottas, with Hamilton a further 2s back, and Leclerc fourth – while Perez moved past Ricciardo to claim P5 with a lovely move around the outside of Turn 1.

Bottas was instructed by Mercedes not to hold Hamilton up – but there might have been some choice words being uttered in Hamilton’s helmet, as Bottas didn’t exactly make life easy for his team mate, Hamilton eventually being forced to dive past the Finn into Turn 10 on Lap 52, Bottas then pitting for softs and dropping behind Leclerc to fourth, before passing the Ferrari again on Lap 57.

So it was now Verstappen vs Hamilton, one-stop plays two-stop – and with Verstappen understandably worried about the charging Hamilton, who was lapping at an average of 1.5s a lap quicker.

On his fresher rubber, Hamilton was quickly on the Red Bull’s tail – Verstappen admitting after the race that he’d been a “sitting duck”, as Hamilton, having played the patience game throughout the Grand Prix, was finally able to unleash the pass on the Dutchman into Turn 1 on Lap 60.

And just like that, it was game over, Hamilton able to pull away easily on his fresher rubber, crossing the line at the end of Lap 66 to extend his winning streak to five consecutive Spanish Grand Prix victories – and six at the venue in total – while Verstappen disconsolately ducked into the pits a few laps from the end, to take what was effectively a free pit stop, bolting on soft tyres and claiming the fastest lap bonus point.

That will have been scant consolation, however, on a day when Red Bull were outmanoeuvred by Mercedes once again, Hamilton now with three wins to Verstappen’s one this season. Bottas had never really been in the fight at the front, coming home third – while there were likely to be strong words from Mercedes management about his less-than-helpful on-track interaction with his team mate...

Leclerc was finally able to match his race pace to his qualifying pace, finishing in the P4 he’d started in, and comfortably ahead of Sergio Perez, who may have recovered well from his eighth place in qualifying – but who was nonetheless over a minute behind Hamilton at the flag.

Ricciardo managed to be the quickest McLaren driver on a Sunday for the first time this season, taking sixth by just 0.9s from Sainz, Norris and Ocon finishing P8 and P9 – while a fantastic scrap for the final point of the day went the way of Pierre Gasly, who won out after a brave late move on Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin.

Stroll thus took 11th from Alfa Romeo’s Kimi Raikkonen – the only driver to start the race on the medium tyres – with Vettel 13th, as both Aston Martins failed to score for the second race in succession, despite Stroll and Vettel being kitted out with the team’s latest upgrade. George Russell had been sharking around the near the points for much of the afternoon but endured a late tumble down the order to 14th.

Giovinazzi and Latifi were 15th and 16th, with Alonso also falling down the order in the latter stages to finish 17th – while the two Haas cars of Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin finished two laps down in 18th and 19th, as Tsunoda registered as the race’s only retiree.

But for the third race weekend out of four this season, a battle between Hamilton and Verstappen went the way of the seven-time champion – with Red Bull surely hoping to strike back hard at Monaco in two weeks’ time.




Scuderia Ferrari
‘P4 the best we could have done’ – Leclerc delighted with ‘very competitive’ Ferrari performance in Spain.

Race pace has been Ferrari’s bugbear in 2021 – but Charles Leclerc was left delighted after converting his P4 on the grid at the Spanish Grand Prix into the same position at the race end, following a long battle with Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas.

The key to Leclerc’s strong performance at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya was a fantastic pass on Bottas at the race start, the Monegasque benefitting from the Mercedes drivers having to avoid each other at Turn 1 to then send a pass around the outside of Bottas in Turn 3. And although Bottas was later able to re-pass Leclerc in the pit stops, Leclerc had enough pace in hand to finish fourth, and comfortably ahead of Sergio Perez’s Red Bull.

“I had a good start,” said Leclerc afterwards, “then I went for the outside in Turn 3 and it worked out for us and then from that moment onwards, we’ve had a very, very good race, very competitive throughout the whole race, and surely for now, P4 is the best we could have done today.

“So I’m happy with what the team have done over the weekend; we should be happy in moments like this and now we need to just work more and to improve the car and fight for third.”

Leclerc's efforts in Spain – as team mate Carlos Sainz finished P7 at home – helped Ferrari to close to within five points of rivals McLaren in the fight for P3 in the constructors’ standings.

And Leclerc called the team’s performance further proof of the steps forward Ferrari have made since their bitterly disappointing 2020 season, which saw them finish sixth in the constructors’ standings.

“It feels very good,” said Leclerc, “because it just means that everything we do, every direction we’ve taken so far in terms of development is the right one, and we can show it on track. It’s always a good feeling, and I’m pretty sure that everyone in Maranello is happy to see the result on track.”

Race - Result FORMULA 1 ARAMCO GRAN PREMIO DE ESPAÑA 2021

POS NO DRIVER CAR LAPS TIME/RETIRED PTS

1 44 Lewis Hamilton MERCEDES 66 1:33:07.680 25
2 33 Max Verstappen RED BULL RACING HONDA 66 +15.841s 19
3 77 Valtteri Bottas MERCEDES 66 +26.610s 15
4 16 Charles Leclerc FERRARI 66 +54.616s 12
5 11 Sergio Perez RED BULL RACING HONDA 66 +63.671s 10
6 3 Daniel Ricciardo MCLAREN MERCEDES 66 +73.768s 8
7 55 Carlos Sainz FERRARI 66 +74.670s 6
8 4 Lando Norris MCLAREN MERCEDES 65 +1 lap 4
9 31 Esteban Ocon ALPINE RENAULT 65 +1 lap 2
10 10 Pierre Gasly ALPHATAURI HONDA 65 +1 lap 1
11 18 Lance Stroll ASTON MARTIN MERCEDES 65 +1 lap 0
12 7 Kimi Räikkönen ALFA ROMEO RACING FERRARI 65 +1 lap 0
13 5 Sebastian Vettel ASTON MARTIN MERCEDES 65 +1 lap 0
14 63 George Russell WILLIAMS MERCEDES 65 +1 lap 0
15 99 Antonio Giovinazzi ALFA ROMEO RACING FERRARI 65 +1 lap 0
16 6 Nicholas Latifi WILLIAMS MERCEDES 65 +1 lap 0
17 14 Fernando Alonso ALPINE RENAULT 65 +1 lap 0
18 47 Mick Schumacher HAAS FERRARI 64 +2 laps 0
19 9 Nikita Mazepin HAAS FERRARI 64 +2 laps 0
NC 22 Yuki Tsunoda ALPHATAURI HONDA 6 DNF 0

Videos Formula 1: HERE
Fotos: Scuderia Ferrari, Formula 1, copyright all rights reserved