Race Analysis - Route 66

By Dan Knutson

Lewis Hamilton took the most direct route to win the Spanish Grand Prix. He started on pole position in his Mercedes and went on to lead all 66 laps to win for the 88th time in his F1 career. Here's how he won and the others lost.

92

This was Hamilton's 92nd pole in Formula 1 and his fourth out of six races this year.

150

It was also the 150th time in his F1 career that he started on the front row of the grid.

LOCKOUT

His Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas qualified second. It was the seventh time in eight years that Mercedes has locked out the front row for the race in Spain.

MAXED OUT

Max Verstappen tried hard in the Red Bull Honda, but ended up third, seven-tenths of a second slower than Hamilton.

HE'S BACK

After missing two races because he tested positive for Covid-19, Sergio Perez was back in the Racing Point. He qualified fourth, while his teammate Lance Stroll started fifth.

ROUNDED OUT

Alex Albon (Red Bull), Carlos Sainz (McLaren) and Lando Norris (McLaren) rounded out the top eight on the grid.

A PERFECT START

Hamilton made a perfect start to take the lead when the red lights went out.

A BAD START

Bottas made a bad start and dropped to fourth.

"I had a bad start, at least compared to Lewis," he said, "and when you're at the front, the effect is even worse because the cars behind, they get a tow out of you. So, first I tried to move to the left, to get a tow from Lewis but then Max was already there.

"And then I tried to go to the right to cover the inside, but one of the Racing Points was already there. Then I had cars on the outside and one of the inside that was ahead of me into Turn 1. So I was a bit sandwiched. Everyone knows on this track how tricky it is when you lose two places at the start."

THE ORDER

The top 10 at the end of lap 1 were: Hamilton, Verstappen, Stroll, Bottas, Perez, Albon, Sainz, Pierre Gasly (AlphaTauri), Norris, Sebastian Vette (Ferrari) and Daniel Ricciardo (Renault).

SUPER SLOW

"Lewis is driving super slow," Vettel radioed. Hamilton was indeed taking it easy to conserve his soft compound Pirelli tires for the first 10 laps.

STOPS

Verstappen pitted at the end of lap 21 to switch to the medium compound slicks. Hamilton and Bottas stopped two laps later to do the same.

HALFWAY

On lap 33, the halfway mark, the order was Hamilton by 3.9 seconds over Verstappen who was 2.7 seconds ahead of Bottas. Next came Ricciardo, who had yet to pit, Stroll, Perez, Sainz and Albon.

SECOND ROUND

Verstappen kicked off the second round of stops when he pitted at the end of lap 41 for a new set of the mediums. Bottas stopped at the end of lap 48 for a new set of the soft compound slicks.

NO SOFTS

Mercedes radioed Hamilton to come in for the soft slicks. He radioed back that the medium compound was the better tire, so that's what was fitted to his car at the end of lap 50.

NO PROBLEM

Unlike the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix a week earlier, Hamilton did not have problems with the tires blistering in the hot conditions.

"We brought all of our learnings from the previous weekend into this one and that enabled us to do well today," Hamilton said. "A fantastic effort from everyone in the team, I'm so grateful for all their hard work and for continuing to push, so a huge thank you to everyone in the team."

FAST LAP

Bottas pitted with two laps to go to get a set of the soft slicks. The plan was for him to set the fastest lap of the race and get the bonus point. Which he duly did.

UNHAPPY

Bottas was not happy to finish third.

"I think with a different start the end result would have been very different," he said. "In the first stint, I had to push hard to make up ground which worked fairly well. In stint two, I was pretty much right behind Max all the time, but it is so difficult to overtake here, and you need a really big time difference.

"We had a free pit stop at the end, so I could pit for fresh tires and got the fastest lap. Overall, it wasn't the race I had hoped for, but sometimes that's just the way it goes. We'll analyze everything from the race and move onto the next one."

SPLIT

Verstappen finished second, thus splitting the two Mercedes cars.

"It's a great result for us to split the two Mercedes cars today after they have been so quick," he said, "and I'm very happy with that. I made a good start and it was important to get past Valtteri early, which I did. I tried everything to stay with Lewis in the first stint but overall their car was faster and Lewis was a bit too quick today.

"From then onwards we focused on our own race and the car felt good. I expected some trouble from Valtteri towards the end when he pitted, but I was happy with my tires and he wasn't catching. Second is of course good but that's not why we are here, we are here to win so you can never be fully satisfied unless you do that."

IN A DAZE

Hamilton was really happy after leading all 66 laps to win in Spain.

"This feels absolutely incredible," he said. "I was just in a daze out there, I didn't even know it was the last lap in the end, that's how in the zone I was. I can't remember the last time I felt like that. It was really special and a real surprise after our recent tire problems."

ANOTHER RECORD

Hamilton now holds the record for podium finishes – 156 – one more than Michael Schumacher.