Spanish GP 2024: Verstappen Triumphs in Thrilling Race
Round 10 and the 1st race of the triple header is over and that was a very good race to watch with some interesting battles and some brilliant overtakes. The Spanish GP have not disappointed for sure and it given us all an insight as to what the rest of the season can be, and boy am I excited for it now that we are closing in on the midway point.
Williams opted to start Alex Albon from the pits after a poor qualifying to change the Power Unit on his car and break Parc Ferme, Albon had only qualified 19th so doing this was a simple decision as he was only going to start 1 position behind his teammate Logan Sargeant. Everyone on the grid opted to start on the red striped soft tyres apart from Albon who decided to try and go longer on the 1st stint and go on the yellow striped mediums for the start.
After 1 formation lap for the 19 drivers, they all lined up on their grid spots and we got the green flag to go racing, 5 lights went on and 5 lights went off and away they went. Lando Norris got a good reaction but so did Max Verstappen, Norris immediately pulls to the right to cover off Verstappen where he might have squeezed him a bit too much as we see Verstappen go on the grass, Norris was able to stay ahead of Verstappen coming into Turn 1 but what the pair didn’t notice was George Russell who started in 4th who was able to get a slip stream from both of them and pull out ahead of them into Turn 1 on the outside where he was able to get past Norris into the lead, while this was happening, Verstappen also managed to get past Norris as Norris had to brake early in order to avoid contact. Lewis Hamilton didn’t have the best start either as because of everything that was happening ahead of him, he had to slow down a bit and got done by both of the Ferrari’s and dropped into P6 by Turn 1. Norris was noted for forcing another driver off the track with his move on Verstappen, but Stewards decided that there was no further investigation required.
We fast forward to Lap 2 and we hear a radio message to Verstappen saying this might be their best chance, GP didn’t have to tell Verstappen twice as coming into Turn 1 on Lap 3 Verstappen had DRS and he was closing in on Russell, Russell moved into the middle of the track to claim the inside but that wasn’t enough to hold Verstappen behind him as Max had the grip he required to make the move stick on the outside of Turn 1. We didn’t see this live, but Carlos Sainz was able to get past his teammate Charles Leclerc on Lap 5 into Turn 1 and the pair touch as we see Sainz squeezing his teammate and then go wide in Turn 2 and have to take to the run off and come back on track ahead of Leclerc. This was also noted by the race control, but the stewards decided that there was no further investigation needed as Sainz followed the race director rules in joining back on the track.
By Lap 8, Verstappen was opening up a nice gap to Russell as by this point, he was already 2 seconds ahead, Norris was pushing Russell at this point and in his DRS zone but wasn’t able to clear him at this stage of the race. On lap 10 we see Yuki Tsunoda and Zhou Guanyu pull the trigger first and come in for their first stops, this naturally triggers a wave of pitstops, so everyone covers off the undercut. Nico Hulkenberg in Lap 11 got noted for a false start by race control and a few laps later, he was given a 5 second penalty for this that he would have to serve on his next stop.
On Lap 15 we hear McLaren on the radio to Norris saying that they are looking to undercut Norris, but this might have been all a bluff as Norris stays out and Russell comes in on Lap 16 freeing up Norris in some free air. The stop from Mercedes was a bad one as it took them 5.3 seconds to serve Russell and they nearly got done in the pits by Sainz as Ferrari had a 3 second quicker lap. Alpine quite like Mercedes also had a bad stop as when Pierre Gasly came into the pits, the right rear didn’t want to come off keeping Gasly stationary for way longer than he would have wanted. On Lap 17 McLaren come back on the radio asking Norris to see if he wanted to cover off Russell and he responded that he wanted to stay out and go for the win to fight Max Verstappen.
Lando Norris Shines with Fastest Lap and Driver of the Day in Spain
On Lap 18 we see Lewis Hamilton closing up to Carlos Sainz and getting very close to making a move on Sainz, however Sainz defended well and managed to stay ahead, however on Lap 19 Hamilton was way closer and had DRS on the start finish straight and was able to get past Sainz, this wasn’t a clean overtake as the pair touch and some carbon fibre flies off from one of the cars, Sainz said that he was pushed off track and that Hamilton needs to give the position back, but after race control noted the incident down, stewards decided that there is no further investigation and Sainz was not impressed one bit with the outcome.
With Norris extending his 1st stint, McLaren came to advise him that he did lose positions to Russell and Verstappen but that he was doing a great job as his tyre delta would come into play later in the race and at the end of Lap 23 we do see Norris pit from 1st place and come back out in 6th while Leclerc followed him a lap later and comes back out in 7th from the lead. Leclerc wasn’t too happy with the strategy call as he questions the team as to why he was still on Plan A, which the team responded that they were reacting to others around him, and it was the best call.
On his 2nd stint, Norris was flying and on the hunt for Verstappen as he makes it past Sainz on Lap 27 where he was lapping 0.8 seconds faster than Verstappen. At the same time on Lap 29, Verstappen was complaining that his tyres were being very inconsistent. On his hunt, Norris was able to get past Hamilton on Lap 32 after having to stay behind him for an extra lap than he would have liked and a few laps later we see an amazing battle between Norris and Russell on Lap 36 where we see Norris and Russell driving side by side for a sequence of corners where they were both swapping position, but by Turn 7, Norris was able to make the move stick and got into 2nd place. After this battle Russell pits for Hards at the same time as Sainz who also goes onto the hards. Norris continues to hammer in some great lap times and by Lap 41, he was able to close the gap to Verstappen to just 6 seconds.
On Lap 43 we hear Russell come on the radio and saying that he was not happy with the Hard tyres as he is already slipping around with them and on Lap 44, we see his teammate Hamilton pit to get onto the softs for the final stint of the race. Verstappen also gets called in at the end of Lap 44 to get onto a fresh set of softs that he saved for the closing stint while others were going on used softs. On Lap 46, we see Hamilton get past Sainz once more on the start finish straight, this time with no contact while his teammate Russell was getting past Oscar Piastri into Turn 1 which seemed like a synced overtake from the Mercedes pair.
Final stop for Norris came on 47, 1 lap after his teammate Piastri came in and it was a bit of a slow stop for Norris but he still manages to come out in second place by a small margin as Russell was very close behind but by the middle of the lap, Norris was able to settle in and start building a gap to Russell while close in on Verstappen as he was 8 seconds behind him for the final stages of the race, this was going to be a race till the end for Norris and Verstappen to see who will come out victorious.
On Lap 47 we see 2 penalties being dished out to Yuki Tsunoda and Nico Hulkenberg who both got a 5 second penalty for speeding in the pitlane, given that both had done their last stop, this time will be added to their final race time. On Lap 52 we see Hamilton get past his teammate Russell into Turn 1 as Russell once more choses to take the inside line and Hamilton was more than ok with making the move stick on the outside of Turn 1 getting himself on the podium positions.
On Lap 57 with 10 laps to go we see Norris closed in his gap to just 5 seconds behind Verstappen while Leclerc gets the hurry up from his team for a chance to get past Russell by the end of the race and get some more crucial points for Ferrari and himself for both Championships.
At the end though we see Max Verstappen take the chequered flag as he was able to hold off Lando Norris by just over 2 seconds, these 2 were followed by Lewis Hamilton who managed to get back onto the podium for the first time since Saudi Arabia last year who was then followed by George Russell, Charles Leclerc, Carlos Sainz, Oscar Piastri, Sergio Perez, Pierre Gasly, and Esteban Ocon forming the Top 10. Lando Norris was visibly disappointed with not winning this race as he had a great chance in doing so but he did get the Driver of the Day award and also getting the fastest lap which also put him into 2nd place in the Drivers Championship for the first time in his career.
Who do you think was the biggest winners and the biggest losers of the Spanish GP? We now head to Austria for the Austrian GP which will be the 2nd race into this triple header of races we are going to get.
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