The first race back in Europe has traditionally been the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona. It’s also the track that the drivers know the best as most pre-season testing is performed here as well. The race often represents an opportunity for teams to bring a serious amount of developmental changes to their cars and there is a tangible excitement to see who may have solved whatever issues they’ve had in the first four fly-away races of the season.
The development of the cars is one interesting talking point but there was also discussion over a special Barcelona thin-tread tire that Pirelli brought to the race due to the resurfacing of the circuit which prompted issues during pre-season testing.
Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen echoed rumors in the paddock that the new tire compounds were favoring Mercedes more than anyone else. Merc boss Toto Wolff rubbished that thought and said that all the teams struggled in pre-season testing so the new tires were benefitting everyone.
Regardless, what became clear was the dramatic race pace that Mercedes seemed to gain between Baku and Barcelona. Lewis Hamilton managed to pull out a 10s lead in just 10 or so laps.
Ferrari, usually kind to its tires, seemed to struggle all day long with the medium and soft compounds. There is no doubt that all the pre-season testing Mercedes did on the medium compounds paid dividends in Spain seeing a dominant one, two with Lewis Hamilton taking a commanding win and lead in the driver’s championship. The third step of the podium filled by Red Bull’s Max Verstappen who inherited that spot by a pitting Vettel during the VSC period.
A win for Mercedes who were murmuring accusations of sandbagging against Ferrari on Friday but as it turns out, perhaps Lewis himself was the sandbagging driver as his race pace was radically different than anything they’ve showed against Ferrari in the first four races of the season. A clear, dominant drive from Lewis mirrored by his teammate, Bottas, ensured a terrific one, two for Mercedes.
There could be several factors at play. Did Mercedes cure their early-season ills with massive development and new kit for the Spanish Grand Prix? Was it down to the special tires that Pirelli brought for Spain that played in to Mercedes hand? A combination of both? Today’s performance from Mercedes, who have not shown this level of race pace all year, could mark a change of tide for the German marque as well as the moment Lewis Hamilton charges forward for his fifth title.
A win for Red Bull who managed to get Max Verstappen on to the podium despite having a damaged front wing from hitting Lance Stroll under the VSC period.
Another big win for Sauber’s Charles Leclerc who scored points again by bringing his car home in 10th and had a terrific battle against Alonso and other in the process. Also a win for Haas F1’s Kevin Magnussen who brought the car him in 6th and is clearly leading the team at this point.
A fail for Ferrari who lost power for Kimi Raikkonen and retired the car. The team then tried a VSC pit for Sebastian Vettel and that cost the German 6 points by losing a place to Max Verstappen. Mercedes were never in bother about the medium tires and certainly didn’t need to stop again and as Ferrari was out of new soft compounds, they opted for a fresh set of Mediums for Vettel but he made no gains on Verstappen for the podium. Despite Ferrari being typically kind on its tires, these compounds were a negative impact on the Ferrari cars.
It may be difficult to know as the next race is in Monaco but if the Spanish Grand Prix wasn’t down to tire compounds making the Mercedes cars come alive, then the car development has just pummeled Ferrari and the red team will have to come up with an answer quickly because they just took a serious nose dive in the championship.
A fail for McLaren and Stoffel Vandoorne who struggled in the back and eventually stopped his car on lap 47 with a loss of power. Force India had an equally tough race with Esteban Ocon out with a smoking engine on lap 40.
Not a good race for Daniel Ricciardo who had good pace but spun under VSC period and lost 12s to the leaders. He set fastest lap but had a tricky car and not easy to drive.
A WTH for Hass F1’s Romain Grosjean who spun on the first lap and collected Hulkenberg and Gasly in the process. To be fair to Romain, he did have to check up when his teammate, ahead of him, got out of shape and this forced Grosjean to react and he lost the rear of his car.
Ferrari must be scratching their heads as they are typically kind to their tires and yet they were suffering a lot with the compounds in Spain and Mercedes looked to be miles ahead in sheer race pace so definitely a WTH moment for Ferrari who will have to crunch some numbers.
Spanish GP Result
| Pos | Driver | Car | Laps | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 66 | 1h35m29.972s |
| 2 | Valtteri Bottas | Mercedes | 66 | 20.593s |
| 3 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull/Renault | 66 | 26.873s |
| 4 | Sebastian Vettel | Ferrari | 66 | 27.584s |
| 5 | Daniel Ricciardo | Red Bull/Renault | 66 | 50.058s |
| 6 | Kevin Magnussen | Haas/Ferrari | 65 | 1 Lap |
| 7 | Carlos Sainz | Renault | 65 | 1 Lap |
| 8 | Fernando Alonso | McLaren/Renault | 65 | 1 Lap |
| 9 | Sergio Perez | Force India/Mercedes | 64 | 2 Laps |
| 10 | Charles Leclerc | Sauber/Ferrari | 64 | 2 Laps |
| 11 | Lance Stroll | Williams/Mercedes | 64 | 2 Laps |
| 12 | Brendon Hartley | Toro Rosso/Honda | 64 | 2 Laps |
| 13 | Marcus Ericsson | Sauber/Ferrari | 64 | 2 Laps |
| 14 | Sergey Sirotkin | Williams/Mercedes | 63 | 3 Laps |
| – | Stoffel Vandoorne | McLaren/Renault | 45 | Retirement |
| – | Esteban Ocon | Force India/Mercedes | 38 | Retirement |
| – | Kimi Raikkonen | Ferrari | 25 | Retirement |
| – | Romain Grosjean | Haas/Ferrari | 0 | Collision |
| – | Pierre Gasly | Toro Rosso/Honda | 0 | Collision |
| – | Nico Hulkenberg | Renault | 0 | Collision |
Driver’s Championship
| Pos | Driver | Points |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lewis Hamilton | 95 |
| 2 | Sebastian Vettel | 78 |
| 3 | Valtteri Bottas | 58 |
| 4 | Kimi Raikkonen | 48 |
| 5 | Daniel Ricciardo | 47 |
| 6 | Max Verstappen | 33 |
| 7 | Fernando Alonso | 32 |
| 8 | Nico Hulkenberg | 22 |
| 9 | Kevin Magnussen | 19 |
| 10 | Carlos Sainz | 19 |
| 11 | Sergio Perez | 17 |
| 12 | Pierre Gasly | 12 |
| 13 | Charles Leclerc | 9 |
| 14 | Stoffel Vandoorne | 8 |
| 15 | Lance Stroll | 4 |
| 16 | Marcus Ericsson | 2 |
| 17 | Esteban Ocon | 1 |
| 18 | Brendon Hartley | 1 |
| 19 | Romain Grosjean | 0 |
| 20 | Sergey Sirotkin | 0 |
Constructor’s Championship
| Pos | Constructor | Points |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mercedes | 153 |
| 2 | Ferrari | 126 |
| 3 | Red Bull/Renault | 80 |
| 4 | Renault | 41 |
| 5 | McLaren/Renault | 40 |
| 6 | Haas/Ferrari | 19 |
| 7 | Force India/Mercedes | 18 |
| 8 | Toro Rosso/Honda | 13 |
| 9 | Sauber/Ferrari | 11 |
| 10 | Williams/Mercedes | 4 |
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Your previous article seems particularly on point now. Ferrari definitely struggled with their tires far more than Mercedes and Red Bull, and the outcome was predictable as a result.
Not a huge fan of tires having such an outsized influence on the outcome of races. Hopefully Ferrari can figure out why this is happening and get on top of it quickly.
I don’t lie it either, in fact, I don’t like HD tires period. Recall when Pirelli tired to get to involved in the tire strategy game and got too aggressive and we had all those blow outs at Silverstone? Then they made a more conservative tire which was fine but now they are trying to confound the engineers again and I’m not a fan of it. This isn’t a tire grand prix. There may be nothing to it but with Ferrari and others suggesting the compounds they brought to Barcelona were favoring Merc as they had trouble here in pre-season,… Read more »
It was a shame to see Kimi retire with power unit issues and seeing that he already changed 3 elements this weekend it doesn’t seem the team are on top of the original issue just yet.
What was the race time OTT like today?
nada.
The differing factor here was track temperature. The Mercedes 2018 car has struggled when the track is cool,which it was in the first 3 of 4 fly away races ( Melbourne was hotter so they did better there as well) they just can’t make use of the engines power in cool conditions due to limited grip.
When the track warms up they are able to apply far more power and therefore speed.
after all that testing on medium compounds over the pre-season test in Barcelona, Paul and I were discussing that this would be in their favor but what is concerning is how poor Ferrari were with their tires.
Seb said he had to take the opportunity to change for fresh mediums because he wouldn’t have made it on the set he had. Fair enough, they were slightly more used than Bottas and Lewis but still, Ferrari not being able to run long like the Mercs on tires is very strange given the first four races.
I would respectfully suggest taking a slightly more skeptical approach to what Seb says. Usually when Hamilton says something, people seem to always assume there’s a double meaning. Blaming the tires is an obvious scapegoat as his pace never dropped off if you look at his lap times. Ferrari gambled and failed. Vettel is a professional who knows the game. This is a way for him to deflect pressure away from the team and probably himself. I believe that’s 3 races off the podium for Seb and people were questioning Hamilton even though he missed the podium once in China… Read more »
I get that. I understand the game, been watching a long time. Regardless of what may be said or not, the fact is they were poor on their tires here and the VSC pit stop wasn’t a big gamble per se only losing one position to Max. That’s not good but in reality they had no where near the pace and tire preservation that Merc did. Warmer temps, lots of testing on medium compounds in pre-season, development upgrades…they all could play a factor in the win today. You could even suggest this track itself favored the Mercs. Fair enough. I… Read more »
Fair points, and certainly the next few races will clarify things, but I don’t believe it would be quite right to discount the performance that Red Bull showed with the different tires as well. They went longer than Merc on the softs and Ricciardo set fastest lap on the mediums. Safe to say Max never would have seen the podium if he was having tire wear issues like Vettel. Thinking of the first few races, I would posit that the unique advantage Ferrari had in warming the tires in those colder environments is a liability on warmer days or with… Read more »
Completely understand. As Arrow says below, next few races will reveal even a bigger tale. Let’s say that Merc brought better upgrades and went from a team who was considered, by many in the paddock, as slower over the long-run race pace than Ferrari even with Baku win to a team that now is over 1s faster per lap. Now, that may also be very track specific in this case too so I can’t suggest they would be that much quicker on every circuit but regardless, that very well may be the case. We know they bring rafts of upgrades… Read more »
Apart from the French and British GP’S the rest will clearly expose what has happened. it was great to see Pirelli cheating with Mercedes at Barcelona again, this time without the black helmets that were used in 2013.
Ah, and Paul may well prove to be as prescient as ever! It is intriguing, but Ferrari certainly has the resources to work it out, and hopefully they can make this season truly competitive. Who knows, maybe those halo “eyebrows” they grew in Spain were part of the issue, and without them they’ll get their tire synergy back.
In the meantime, despite all those other upgrade packages the teams brought, the midfield didn’t seem too much affected. Hard to tell with so many DNFs though. It would be interesting to dive deeper into that too.
Seb dropped from P2 to P4. Blame the scapegoat if you like, but it Ferrari struggles in Monaco where the thinner tires will not be used, then you know it’s not the tires. Especially when the softest tires will be used that work best on the Ferrari. Mercedes works best on the harder compounds.
Is anyone else annoyed at the lack of podium interviews? I liked hearing the drivers talk to the fans.
They do that when they come out of the cars now
Yeah I know, it’s just not that engaging.
It’s better when they talk to the crowd. We could miss classic moments such as rosberg singing or making Martin brundle do a shoey.
F1 fans were a little immature and kept booing a certain driver on the podium so that’s “why we can’t have nice things anymore.” Maybe they’ll bring it back when we return to Asia where fans are little more respectful.
Even though he got away with another dodgy bobble today, I am beginning to think that Max is not the sharpest knife in the drawer despite his physical gifts. World champions are usually clever and almost always shrewd. Max seems to be a blunderer–fun to watch in the moment but not the one you bet on much beyond that.
Would love to see future world champion Charles Leclerc against him in matched equipment.
You visit any track day; you will hear (without fail) at the drivers meeting “If you spin, two feet in”. Clearly Grosjean forgot he only has two petals and a Tilke levels of paved run-off area. It was overly aggressive and I think he maybe looking at a 10 spot penalty to keep him well back of the kill-zone should it happen again, even at the ‘impossible to pass’ Monaco. Is it just me or did I detect a larger amount of mechanical failures then we have seen yet this season? And while no particular supplier seemed especially prone; could… Read more »