How Hamilton orchestrated total dominance in Spain

What you need to know:

  • The remaining laps saw Bottas nurse his wheels which he had used for more than two thirds of the race to the finish line.
  • Ricciardo went home with the fastest lap title and a new lap record to boot while Hamilton’s win saw him open a 17-point gap in the championship.
  • Hamilton extended his record of consecutive finishes in the points to 30 races.

The Spanish Grand Prix had the symmetrical line-up of the Mercedes locking the front row, then the Ferraris and the Red Bulls at the start of the race on Sunday.

Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton and his teammate, Valtteri Bottas, were only separated by 0.040 of a second during qualifying.

In fifth and sixth place, Red Bulls’ Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo had even a slimmer margin after qualifying, 0.002 of a second, which serves to show why Formula One’s timing is to the thousandths of a second.

Hamilton made a clean start from the rest and led into Turn One. Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel cleverly took advantage of the slipstream from the Merc in front of him to overtake Bottas in the approach to Turn One.

Further down the field, a minute wobble by Kevin Magnussen in the Haas at Turn Three was sufficient to make his teammate, Romain Grosjean, go off track and skid back onto it, taking out the Renault of Nico Hulkenberg and the Toro Rosso of Pierre Gasly.

The Safety Car was deployed. When the race resumed, Hamilton seemingly got into a groove setting the fastest lap on the seventh lap and began widening the gap between him and Vettel.

McLaren’s Fernando Alonso bravely overtook the Force India of Esteban Ocon on the outside of Turn Three soon after the restart. By the ninth lap, Hamilton had opened a two-second gap on Vettel and set a new lap record in the previous lap.

Behind Vettel and Bottas, Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen was keeping the error-prone Verstappen at bay, with the Dutchman beyond the DRS range of the Finn.

Such was the pace of Hamilton in clean air ahead that by the 15th lap, he had already opened a 6.4-second gap on Vettel. Bottas had come to within DRS range of the German but had, disappointingly to some, not attempted to overtake the four-time World Champion.

On the 17th lap, Ferrari brought in Vettel who switched to mediums in a 2.5-second pit stop. On the next lap, Hamilton, still on soft tyres, set another new lap record. Two laps later, Mercedes brought in Bottas in the hope that he had gone fast enough to get ahead of Vettel after the pit stop.

Bottas’ time of 3.9 seconds resulted in the Finn exiting the pit stop as Vettel was bearing down the finish straight behind Magnussen.

As Bottas rejoined, Vettel was at full speed and even took the chance to overtake Magnussen before Turn One. A slower pit stop denied Bottas the chance to regain second position.

In the 25th lap, Raikkonen’s engine had had enough of the Spanish outing and gave way.

The Finn retired, managing to drive slowly back to the pit lane. Hamilton then came in for fresh tyres leaving Verstappen to inherit the lead.

When the Briton came out, he was smack in the middle of the two Red Bulls, but beyond DRS range of Verstappen.

Hamilton kept closing in on the Red Bull in front of him and even got within DRS range, but knowing Verstappen, the championship leader was better off waiting for the inevitable to happen.

Red Bull brought in Ricciardo first on the 33rd lap, then Verstappen a lap later. The top five had all pitted once and it meant that Hamilton was back as race leader.

Further down the leaderboard, Sauber’s rookie Charles Leclerc, who has impressed many so far this season, was keeping two-time world champion Alonso at bay in exciting fashion.

A Virtual Safety Car (VSC) was deployed when Ocon lost power and parked his car on the side of the track. During the VSC period, Verstappen hit the Williams of Lance Stroll, damaging his front wing in the process, while Ricciardo spun, losing some precious seconds to open the gap between him and his teammate.

Ferrari saw it fit to pit Vettel then for another set of mediums. On rejoining the race, Vettel got behind Verstappen and his fate was sealed.

The remaining laps saw Bottas nurse his wheels which he had used for more than two thirds of the race to the finish line.

Ricciardo went home with the fastest lap title and a new lap record to boot while Hamilton’s win saw him open a 17-point gap in the championship.

Hamilton extended his record of consecutive finishes in the points to 30 races.