Max Verstappen celebrated another win this season at the Spanish Grand Prix, taking his seventh win of the season. Lando Norris was 2.219 seconds behind, while third was seven-time world champion, Lewis Hamilton, finishing almost 18 seconds behind the winner.
Qualifying Summary
Lando Norris took his first pole position of the season and second of his career while his team mate finished Q3 last without setting a time after he ran wide during his only hot lap of the session. Lando managed a lap of 1:11.383, Verstappen qualified second 0.020 seconds behind him, while Lewis Hamilton was third 0.318 seconds off pole.
Race Summary
In an exciting start to the race, George Russell started from fourth yet managed to arrive at the first corner in front after a three way battle for the lead. This lead however did not last long as Max overtook him on the third lap and from that moment began dictating the pace. Verstappen held the lead the entire race, loosing it only briefly while out of sync following pit stops.
Verstappen quickly broke away from the rest of the pack and was in the lead until lap 18 when he went to change tires for his first pit stop. Out of sync after the change, Max returned to the track in fourth place, leaving Norris, Leclerc and Piastri in the lead who were yet to make a pit stop.
Three laps after his first stop, the Dutch driver overtook Piastri, following this up shortly afterwards to take the lead after Leclerc and Norris pitted on laps 27 and 29. Norris, like Max, managed to overtake his rivals very quickly after his stop, overtaking Hamilton for position on lap 32, followed by a great duel to overtake George Russell three laps later. George then made his second stop to change tires, followed by Lewis Hamilton on lap 44.
The fight began between Verstappen and Norris after both rushed to the pits for a final duel to the finish. Norris once again this season provided an excellent challenge to the Dutch driver. In the closing laps, Lando chased down Max on soft and slightly fresher tires, closing the gap heavily to under a second, but by the end fell slightly short, had there been a couple of additional laps left to attack he may have been able to overtake the three-time world champion for the win, however it was not to be. The three-time consecutive world champion was too fast for Lando and he deservedly won another dominant victory this season.
Max was delighted with the victory, which saw him take the top position on the podium for the 61st time in his career, but he expressed worry that McLaren proved to be a worthy rival to Red Bull once again.
“I am very happy about the victory. The key was that I overtook Russell at the start of the third lap and took the leading position. McLaren had better pace than us, which is a bit worrying. It’s certainly not something we want to see,” Max told Sky Sports, adding: “I’d like to improve the car’s performance, because we’re not exactly at the peak of our capabilities. Nevertheless, we did the job in an adequate way and thanks to that we got the best possible result. It is not desirable to constantly rely on the optimality of the human factor. In order to continuously win, you have to have the fastest case, and that has not been the case for Red Bull for some time now.”
Norris’s second place was his third in the last four races, which also took him to second place in the general standings with 150 points. Leclerc is 2 points behind while Max leads strongly with 219 points.
In a post race interview, Lando explained that his poor start likely cost him the victory:
“The car was incredible today, I think we were for sure the quickest, I just lost it in the beginning. So yeah, disappointed, but a lot of positives, one negative and that kind of ruined everything. Fair play, well done to Red Bull and Max, another job done for them, but a shame that we lost it at the same time, so a bit frustrating. We’ll work on it for next time.”
Lewis Hamilton took third place on the podium for the first time this season.
“This is the best weekend I’ve had all year, and for a long, long time, for like 15 races or something crazy. It’s good to be back, it’s good to have battles like today, it’s good to reassert and reaffirm.”
Fourth place at the Spanish Grand Prix was taken by George Russell, followed by the Ferrari duo, Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jr. Oscar Piastri, Sergio Perez, and Alpine’s Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon were among the points finishers. Due to a penalty, Nico Hulkenberg dropped out of the points, although initially finishing the race in tenth place.
The next race is the 2024 F1 Austrian Grand Prix at Red Bull Ring next weekend.
