Lewis Hamilton has regained the lead for the driver’s championship from his Mercedes-AMG team-mate, Valtteri Bottas with his dominating win at the Spanish Grand Prix. With Bottas finishing second, Mercedes have created history as they claim their fifth consecutive 1 & 2 finish at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. Hamilton is now seven points clear of Bottas in the championship scoring 26 points, clocking the fastest lap of the race as well for the first time this season for that extra point.
Bottas started the race on pole after a blistering qualifying lap on Saturday. However, post-race, Bottas claimed that a clutch issue at the start saw him lose out to Hamilton into turn one and get sandwiched between the Brit and the Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel. Astonishingly, none of the three drivers collided with each other as they entered the first corner three-abreast. Bottas struggled in Hamilton’s dirty air but managed to stay ahead of Vettel into turn two.
Between the scramble at the Max Verstappen took advantage to get ahead of Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari to finish third for his second podium this season for Red Bull. Both Ferraris failed to make any significant impact. LeClerc found himself backed up behind Vettel now on different strategies. Ferrari was slow to react, and eventually used team orders allowing LeClerc to pass 1. The poor strategic mistakes left Vettel to finish fourth with Charles Leclerc in fifth again restricted by the Ferrari’s lack of pace, and poor race strategy by the team.
On lap 46, Lando Norris tried to pass Lance Stroll around the outside into turn one and two, but running deep eventually led to a collision between the McLaren and the Racing Point cars. Both cars crashed and suffered damage forcing the only two retirements of the race. The abandoned cars, debris and gravel on the track brought out the safety car. Most drivers took the option to make a second pitstop for fresher tyres. At the restart on lap 54, Hamilton set an astounding lap for the extra point up for grab and sped away from the pack to claim his victory unchallenged with a gap of four seconds.
With the Ferrari’s outpaced by the Mercedes’ and Verstappen, Pierre Gasly finished in sixth behind Leclerc. Kevin Magnussen in seventh for Haas, followed by Carlos Sainz Jr. in the Mclaren, Daniil Kvyat in the Torro Rosso and Romain Grosjean in the second Haas finishing the top ten respectively.
