Hamilton and Co reign in Spain
LEWIS Hamilton beat pole-sitter Valtteri Bottas at the start to top yet another Mercedes one-two finish at the Spanish Formula One Grand Prix yesterday.
Title holder Hamilton reclaimed the championship lead from his team-mate by seven points with a third season victory and 76th of his career, as he also claimed the fastest race lap. Rampant Mercedes have finished first and second in each of the first five season races.
Rivals Ferrari with Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc didn’t make the podium in fourth and fifth, in spite of an engine upgrade as Red Bull’s Max Verstappen beat them for third. Vettel is now 48 points behind Hamilton in the championship.
A late safety car phase added a little drama to a race, which saw little overtaking.
“This is history in the making to have five one-two’s. I am proud of that and proud of everyone’s hard work,” Hamilton said. “It’s been a hard first four races, it’s a great car but we don’t always get along. I’m grateful in the race that we were able to settle our differences and get out well down to turn one today.”
He was referring to the start where he got past Bottas on the inside while Vettel in vain tried his luck on the outside from third on the grid. Vettel suffered a “flat spot” on his front right tyre in the process and then lost third place to Verstappen in the next turn.
“It was an interesting start – it was close, I saw the red car go around the back of both Valtteri and me,” Hamilton said while Bottas admitted to a modest start.
Bottas said: “It was pretty tight but I lost it at the start, there was strange behaviour on the clutch, it was releasing, biting, releasing, biting and I’ve not felt that before. I got some points and that’s important, every point will count, but I have to find out what happened at the start.”
Hamilton built a small lead over Bottas, while Verstappen was unable to challenge the Finn and trailed him by some three seconds by lap 10, with the Ferraris of Vettel and Leclerc already almost 10 seconds back.
Leclerc seemed to have the faster car and Ferrari let the Monagasque pass Vettel in lap 12, who then pleaded to be pitted to get rid of the bad tyre – which finally happened in lap 20 in a far from ideal stop.
Tyre strategy weighed in once everyone had pitted, with the two Mercedes and Vettel on mediums, Verstappen on a second set of the faster softs, meaning he would definitely need to pit again, and Leclerc on the slowest but longestlasting hards.
As a result, Ferrari let Vettel pass Leclerc again in lap 36 which was later than they should have done just as at the earlier swap, and the German then pitted five laps later for another set of mediums.
Verstappen countered just three laps later, also for mediums, in an effort to protect third until the end.
But a collision between Lance Stroll and Lando Norris then spiced things up as it led to a safety car phase and Hamilton, Bottas and Leclerc also pitting.
The next race is the famous Monaco Grand Prix on May 26, Leclerc’s home event.