Lewis Hamilton Wins 2021 Spanish Grand Prix After Battle With Red Bull’s Max Verstappen
It’s been a great weekend with Qualifying and we saw Red Bull Racing once again appearing to be in a strong position, despite Lewis Hamilton’s pole.
At the start of the race, Max Verstappen took the lead – closing the racing line at the end of the straight with the two almost coming together however Lewis Hamilton kept his cool, managing his race (and tyres).
Red Bull Racing had a slight glitch with Max Verstappen’s pit stop with a delay with the back tyre and according to numerous reports, Helmut Marko has stated that there was an “error” with communication between his engineer, resulting in Verstappen coming in earlier which is why his tyres were not ready.
We also had battles further back with Charles Leclerc keeping the pressure on Valtteri Bottas who didn’t have the best of races – even when he was instructed to move out of the way to let his team-mate past (who was fighting for the win).
Charles Leclerc: “I had a good start, I went for the outside in Turn 3 and it worked out for us. It was a very very good race and we were very competitive. P4 is the best we could have done today and I’m sure everyone at Maranello is happy to see the results on track…”
McLaren are showing that they have also improved with both their cars finishing in the points, a double-points finish for their drivers – Ricciardo in P6 and Norris in P8.
Lando Norris: “No surprises, frustrated with the passes and to get into DRS was hard. It didn’t look good but overall, it was a decent race – we did good. We didn’t really show our potential yesterday, Daniel did and he finished in P6…”
Carlos Sainz: “It was frustrating today, the car was behaving really well. I knew the start was key but I couldn’t make it happen – after that, it was a race of staying behind people, trying to push but not being able to get past. I was three of four tenths quicker than Daniel (Ricciardo) but that’s not quick enough to overtake here…”
Further back the grid, we had Kimi Raikkonen finishing in 12th – starting the race extremely well and being the only driver on the grid who started on the mediums.
Combining his experience and handling, he only made one stop.
One race that I’m personally looking forward to is Monaco – it’s the next stop for the Formula 1 teams and it’s been a long wait since they didn’t drive there last year.
The famous streets of Monte-Carlo – where no mistakes can be made. It’s a tough street circuit and we all know it’s Practices and Qualifying which make all the difference for the weekend – along with key strategies.
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