First day
Usually, Formula 1 pilots have some idea of what awaits them in Barcelona before arriving at the Spanish Grand Prix. It is there that the traditional pre-season tests take place, as a result of which the riders become familiar with every centimeter of the track. But this year, preparations for the World Championship took place in Bahrain, and it was possible to return to Barcelona-Catalunya only now, within the framework of the fourth stage of the championship.
The first three stages clearly showed that only Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen are fighting for the title, almost in no way inferior to each other. When one of them won the victory, the other certainly finished second. The Mercedes pilot managed to earn a slight advantage of eight points, and in Spain he had excellent chances to increase the gap - the Briton won the last four local Grand Prix. At the same time, the previous winner before him was Verstappen, for whom this success in 2016 was the first in his career.
On the first day of the racing weekend, Hamilton was unable to immediately indicate his advantage.
In the morning practice, he drove a little slower than Verstappen, who in turn lost 0.033 seconds to Valtteri Bottas.
This session was also remembered for Nikita Mazepin's U-turn - the Russian Haas pilot flew off the track already in the fourth minute.
He also showed the worst time, losing more than a second to team-mate Mick Schumacher.
In the evening, the pilots assessed tire wear and worked long distances.
The Mercedes drivers were the first in this component as well, showing the two best times on separate laps.
At Red Bull, it was not possible to declare itself - Verstappen and Sergio Perez only closed the top ten, questioning their successful performance in qualifying.
Second day
And to show a good result on Saturday at Barcelona-Catalunya was vital.
Over the past 20 years, only three pole position holders have been defeated in the race.
Hamilton, for example, always won all his victories in Spain after he started closest to the traffic lights.
Right before qualifying, Verstappen was still able to re-engage in the struggle.
In Saturday's free races, in which the pilots trained to show the best result on a single lap, the Dutchman was faster than Hamilton by almost a quarter of a second.
Bottas has already lost almost six tenths of a second, losing at the same time to Ferrari pilots Charles Leclair and Carlos Sainz.
In qualifying, the favorites continued to swap places, making the intrigue more and more twisted. At first, Bottas was faster than Verstappen, and Hamilton showed ninth time at all. In the second session, the Red Bull pilot came out ahead, and the reigning world champion, who won 99 pole positions in his career, climbed to third place. The final round began with Hamilton ahead of Verstappen by a modest 0.036 seconds. During the second attempt, the wind picked up on the track, and none of the leaders managed to improve their time. Hamilton won qualifying for the hundredth time, and his main rival this season was on the same row of the grid with him.
For Mazepin, qualifications in Spain were even worse than all the previous ones.
The Russian pilot caught the attention of the stewards when he blocked McLaren's Lando Norris during his fast lap.
The Haas rider was penalized with three grid positions for this.
True, this punishment had no real consequences - Mazepin habitually showed the worst time and became the last in the peloton.
Race
Verstappen was not going to put up with the fact that the victory in Spain should go to the pole position holder.
After all, five years ago he managed to win in Barcelona, starting from fourth place, and this time the Red Bull pilot started the race at all second.
Verstappen immediately attacked Hamilton and bypassed him, forcing him to brake at the turn.
This maneuver had consequences for Bottas, who ran into his partner and was forced to let Leclair pass.
Hamilton could not recover from the shock and began to lag behind the new leader of the race. He was saved by the turned off engine at Yuki Tsunoda. While the stewards were evacuating the broken AlphaTauri car, Hamilton was able to get close to Verstappen, but did not counterattack after the restart. There was no answer from Bottas either. The Mercedes drivers were not dangerous on the track and had to wait for the first series of pit stops, which could affect the placement of the leaders.
Expectations did not disappoint the German team. Verstappen was the first to enter the pits, and one of the mechanics was not ready and brought the wheel late. The Dutchman lost a couple of seconds in the pit stop and got stuck on the track behind McLaren's Daniel Riccardo and team-mate Perez. Hamilton did not immediately take advantage of the misfire of competitors and changed tires after four laps. Although he was six seconds behind, on fresh tires he began to rapidly close the gap with Verstappen. A few minutes later, two cars lined up one after the other. At the same time, Bottas managed to bypass Leclair due to a pit stop and take third place with a good margin.
Hamilton tried for a long time to pass Verstappen, but could not do it in any way. Then his team decided to take a desperate step - to update the tires again, which the Dutchman was clearly not going to do. There was still more than a third of the distance ahead, and such a bold tactic could well have yielded results. Hamilton returned to the track in 22.4 seconds from the leader and again began to rapidly close the gap, sometimes driving a circle a second faster than the leader.
After Hamilton beat Bottas in the fight and returned to second place, it became obvious that the Briton would still win the race. Six laps before the finish, the Mercedes driver effortlessly bypassed Verstappen and went for his sixth victory in Spain, which allowed him to catch up with the most titled triumphant of this stage, Michael Schumacher. The Dutch driver had only to go to his second pit stop and earn an extra point for the fastest lap. Bottas finished behind him, and the Spanish Grand Prix podium was the same as in Bahrain and Portugal.
The pilot who took the last place did not change either.
Mazepin could not distinguish himself in any way in the race and only thanks to Tsunoda's descent he finished 19th.
At the same time, he lost to Schumacher almost 50 seconds - for pilots on two identical cars, this is a colossal difference.
Mazepin managed to distinguish himself only with a cool congratulation on Victory Day - especially for the race that took place on May 9, he chose a new helmet, on which the ninth pilot's number was depicted as a "St. George's ribbon", and a red star was drawn inside the number.
View this post on Instagram
Publication from Nikita Mazepin (@nikita_mazepin)