The Spanish Grand Prix has historically been a Mercedes dominated track, so it was no surprise when Lewis Hamilton took his silver arrow to a career milestone of 100 pole positions. The lights went out at the start of the race and a brilliant getaway and daring lunge into turn 1 saw Max Verstappen take an early lead in the race.

Soon after the start, Yuki Tsunoda’s AlphaTauri broke down on the side of the track, resulting in a safety car while the Marshalls cleared away the car. Racing quickly resumed and most of the top 10 runners held their position during the restart.

As the race progressed and the first set of pitstops were made, we learnt that Red Bull was committing to a one-stop strategy around the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, whilst Hamilton was opting for two. With around 20 laps to close a 20 second gap, Lewis Hamilton had a big job on his hand and he most certainly delivered.

With six laps to go, Hamilton used the superior performance of his newer tyres to pass the Dutchman into Turn 1 and check out for his 98th victory, and fifth straight win at the circuit. As a result of this Verstappen chose to pit for soft tyres in order to secure the extra world championship point for fastest lap.

With Hamilton and Verstappen having been in a class of their own in Spain, Bottas came home a distant third after his own race-long battle with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, who finished an excellent fourth for Ferrari, while Red Bull’s Sergio Perez put in a solid recovery drive from P8 on the grid to take fifth.

The Spanish Grand Prix was yet another chapter in the epic battle between Verstappen and Hamilton that has been and will surely continue to play out throughout the remainder of the season…

Race Results