Four talking points from the Spanish GP

Hamilton’s faith in Mercedes pays off

The seven-time world champion admitted it crossed his mind to ignore his team’s call to make a second pitstop with 24 laps of the grand prix to run. But such is the level of trust he has in this super-team after so many years of sustained success, it was only ever a flicker of doubt – and it proved to be the clever strategic thinking he needed to help him on his way to a 98th victory, his sixth win in Barcelona and a fifth consecutive Spanish GP success to equal another record – Ayrton Senna’s this time, the Brazilian having scored five on the trot in Monaco from 1989 to ’93.

Verstappen gained the upper hand at the start with a characteristically assertive move into Turn 1 that left Hamilton, starting from his 100th pole position, with no option but to back out of it. Still, from there the black Mercedes was always shadowing the Red Bull, on a circuit where overtaking is notoriously tough. Hamilton ran four laps longer than Verstappen in his first stint, and although it lost him time on track – despite Max’s late call to come in leading to an uncharacteristically slow Red Bull stop – Lewis quickly closed back up on his fresh mediums. Then Mercedes pulled its masterstroke.

One-stop strategies are theoretically fastest at this track, but as Hamilton said in his post-race interview high tyre wear makes them notoriously hard to pull off. Merc’s call to go for two stops had strong echoes of one of Hamilton’s greatest wins, at the Hungaroring in 2019, and once again his team gave him a challenge to close down a big gap created by a surprise second stop: this time just over 22 seconds with those 24 laps to run. F1’s own simulation suggested Hamilton would catch Verstappen on the last lap, but on a set of scrubbed medium Pirellis, it very quickly became clear it wouldn’t take anywhere near as long. For a second week in succession, following his defeat at the Portuguese GP, Verstappen described himself as a “sitting duck” as Hamilton swept around his outside at Turn 1 on lap 60 of 66.

“In a way, I could see it coming,” shrugged Verstappen afterwards. “Already with the softs [in the first stint] he was faster and then the mediums [in the second stint] he clearly had a lot more pace – he could stay within one second. There was not a lot we could have done.”

The victory stretches Hamilton’s lead over Verstappen to 14 points in the standings. Red Bull is closer to Mercedes than it has ever been in the hybrid era, but it’s pre-season performance edge is fast becoming a distant memory.

Bottas shows signs of frustration

During his chase of Verstappen, Hamilton lost more than a second when he came up to pass Valtteri Bottas – despite the Finn receiving an order from the pitwall to let his team-mate past given their divergent strategies. That Bottas made it tough for Hamilton to get by, forcing Lewis into what looked like a proper DRS-assisted pass into Turn 10, spoke volumes for the second driver’s mindset.

He’d already faced aggravating rumours that George Russell will replace him sooner rather than later, and even if Toto Wolff had rubbished such talk it’s all too clear which way things are going for the 31-year-old. Ignoring a team order is the sort of action of a driver who knows he’s got nothing to lose – and the end is coming at some point, even if it is at the conclusion of the year rather than mid-season. He has the look of a beaten man.

Perez needs to up his game

A third stop for a set of soft tyres should have yielded the fastest lap for Bottas, but he even lost that to Verstappen, who pitted for a set of his own once he knew his race with Hamilton was over. Still, Bottas did at least finish on the podium and, having lost a position at Turn 3 after the start to Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari, had recovered well to be a factor in this race that Red Bull couldn’t discount. The same could not be said of the second Red Bull. 

On the face of it, Sergio Perez drove well to recover from another disappointing qualifying performance, rising from eighth on the grid to finish fifth. But that was behind the excellent Leclerc who put in another over-achieving performance for Ferrari, and the truth Perez must face is he was always coming from too far back to be any distraction to the Mercedes pair in their fight with Verstappen. 

Perez was hired as Alexander Albon’s replacement to ensure the second Red Bull is more of a contender, not only to aid Verstappen’s cause but to theoretically give the team a shot at the constructors’ crown. So far, ‘Checo’ is falling short of his brief. Fifth in a Red Bull is no better than the performances he used to put in for what used to known as Racing Point.

Ricciardo shows Norris the way

Meanwhile, at McLaren, Daniel Ricciardo experienced his most competitive weekend of the season so far and had the edge over Lando Norris for the first time in 2021. The Australian still has some way to go to feel properly comfortable in the MCL35M and for such a driver sixth place from seventh on the grid is nothing to get excited about. But it’s progress. Norris, who had been arguably the star of the season during the first three races, had a muted weekend compared to what we’ve come to expect, starting ninth and finishing eighth.

Esteban Ocon lost ground from his excellent fifth on the grid to finish ninth for Alpine, ahead of the AlphaTauri of Pierre Gasly, who was delayed by a five-second penalty for starting outside of his grid box – a silly mistake. As for Alpine’s home hero, Fernando Alonso endured a difficult and ultimately disappointing return to Barcelona, dropping out of the points with an apparent engine problem. He struggled on to finish 17^th.

Images courtesy of Motorsport Images.