ESPN rounds up the main talking points from the Spanish Grand Prix, a race where Lewis Hamilton dominated to claim a second victory in 2018.
BARCELONA, Spain — ESPN rounds up the main talking points from the Spanish Grand Prix, a race where Lewis Hamilton dominated from the opening lap to claim a second victory in 2018.
Shock: Ferrari will have a lot of questions to answer on Monday morning in Maranello. Not only were they outpaced by Mercedes all weekend, they also suffered two engine issues on Kimi Raikkonen’s car that resulted in a DNF and a 31-point swing in Mercedes’ favour in the constructors’ championship. Given that these power units are designed to last seven races it was a big surprise to see car No.7 retire from the race with an issue on a power unit that was just two days old. At the time of writing it was not yet clear what caused the problem and whether the components are salvageable, but after reliability issues cost Vettel a shot at the championship last year, Ferrari will be concerned by the problems.
Shocker: Ferrari needed to be aggressive starting from the second row of the grid, but in trying to beat Mercedes it ended up losing out to Red Bull. By pitting Sebastian Vettel on lap 17, Ferrari attempted to force Mercedes’ hand but a slow stop delivered him back on the track directly behind Kevin Magnussen. Valtteri Bottas should have overcut the Ferrari when he pitted two laps later, but a slow stop of his own saw him emerge behind Vettel. By pitting so early, Ferrari was also committing to a two-stop strategy that ultimately proved to be slower than the one-stops utilised by Mercedes and Red Bull. Unusually for a race in the Pirelli era, it was tyre wear and not degradation that was the limiting factor with the tyres and it seems Ferrari was not confident there was enough rubber left on Vettel’s second set of tyres to see him to the end of the race. The team would have analysed the softs that came off and made a judgement call based on the wear level to pit Vettel under the VSC and drop him from second place to fourth. There would have been some hope the new mediums would offer a performance advantage but given the low degradation and the relatively new tyres on Verstappen’s car it didn’t transpire.
The big one: Spinning in one of the fastest corners on the calendar on the opening lap of the race is always a recipe for carnage, and so it proved when Romain Grosjean lost the rear of his Haas in Turn 3. It seemed as though he was caught out by Kevin Magnussen suffering a twitch in front, causing his car to do the same as it was stripped of downforce by the wake of dirty air coming from its sister car in front. Grosjean kept his foot in the throttle as he ran wide, causing his Haas to swap ends and collect Nico Hukenberg and Pierre Gasly in a huge accident. Fortunately no-one was injured but Grosjean will devastated as his pointless run of races continues.
Verstappen flies with clipped wing: Despite losing his front wing endplate in a collision with Stroll following a Virtual Safety Car, Verstappen looked incredibly racey in the final few laps. The clipped wing was expected to give Vettel behind him a free pass back to a podium, but instead Verstappen pulled away and closed in significantly on Bottas in the final few laps. In some ways he was very lucky, but it shouldn’t take away from an impressive drive following a torrid start to the season.
Ricciardo spins out of contention: Those following live timing will have struggled to compute why Daniel Ricciardo was so far off the pace following the final VSC period. Although it wasn’t caught on camera, he later admitted on team radio that he spun at Turn 10 as the green flags came out. The mistake cost him a shot at attacking Vettel, which may have been possible considering the Red Bull set the fastest lap in the closing stages.
Overtake of the race: Fernando Alonso’s move around the outside of Esteban Ocon at Turn 3. Alonso would have been helped by having softer tyres at the Safety Car restart, but it still required bravery and skill to make a move stick around the outside of the fastest corner on the track.
Driver of the day: Lewis Hamilton appears to have his mojo back. After struggling so much in the last three rounds, a pole position and back-to-back victories is confirmation he is back at his best. The victory rarely looked in doubt as he trod a delicate path between outright speed and managing tyre wear.
