Verstappen makes it 40, Hamilton leads Mercedes' comeback

If we were to summarize the Spanish Grand Prix in a few words, we would limit ourselves to emphasize, apart from Red Bull, the progress displayed by Mercedes, Ferrari's stagnation and the bad day encountered by the Aston Martin drivers. But reading between the lines of the 66 laps on the Circuit de Catalunya, more food for thought emerges than the final classification alone can offer...

Yesterday's race marks Max Verstappen's 40th race win in Formula 1, a goal that places him numerically alongside the greatests of this sport. And at just 25 years of age, with the current form he and his team are on, it's safe to bet that his records will only improve.

Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Max' success has never been questioned, not even at the race start when Sainz - on Soft tyres - pulled alongside him: in response, the Dutchman simply closed the line as if Carlos weren't there. If his rivals haven't figured it out yet, he's not willing to leave anything on the table...

"Driving this car is a great pleasure... There were different strategies with the tyres on track today, but I think ours was the right one. A win here is truly incredible. The battle with Sainz? I had the harder compound and I knew which could have been difficult in braking. Going a little to the limit in turn 1 is always quite risky, but luckily nothing happened. Let's hope we continue like this during the year!"

Max Verstappen

A race that assesses the tyre degradation of each team

The theme on which the Spanish GP was played was that of tyre wear, with some teams using them much better than others.

Two virtuous examples, in this sense, were Red Bull and the revived Mercedes... While this is certainly nothing new for the World Champion team, the race pace held by the two W14s of Hamilton and Russell was the surprise of the Sunday in Barcelona.

The strategy of the Red Bulls, regardless of the fact that Verstappen started on pole and Perez from the eleventh place, was based on two pitstops (with a sequence of Medium - Hard - Soft tyres). At Mercedes, on the other hand, while sticking to a two-stop strategy, carefully avoided running stints on the Hard tyres, judged inadequate for yesterday's low temperatures: for this reason they opted for a Soft - Medium - Soft sequence.

Race Pace Analysis of the top teams - Spanish GP

Analysis of the race pace held by the top teams

If we extrapolate from the analysis of the race paces the laptimes obtained by the drivers who finished on the podium, what they had in common on Sunday was the ability to lap pretty quick without asking much from the tyres, in order to be highly competitive at the end of each stint. In this the difference compared to Ferrari and Aston Martin is clear, which for different reasons - to which we will return later - were only able to run a few fast laps after the pitstops, only to see in the following minutes their laptimes rise dramatically.

Jake Grant / Motorsport Images

In short, it seems that the updates brought to Monaco for the first time by the Brackley team worked: if the performance shown in qualifying was in line with that of the previous rounds, the same cannot be said for the race pace, which places Mercedes in the role of second fastest car (waiting to re-measure Aston Martin after their flop in Spain).

Indeed, a few laps from the end, Lewis Hamilton - at that point on the same strategy as Max Verstappen - tried to set the fastest lap, closing  in 1'16"6 against the laptime of 1'16"3 which in the end was worth the additional point for the Dutchman. Considering that Lewis was able to take advantage of the DRS in his fast lap, while Max wasn't, we can extrapolate a gap of 0.7s between them. Not the difference we used to see in previous races.

"The crowd is great here, I have to thank them. Great result for the team, we certainly didn't expect this result today. I take my hat off to the team, here and at the factory, who keep working and getting us a little closer to the 'bulls' who are up front. Congratulations also to George, he did a great job today. They [Red Bull] are too fast now, but step by step we hope to get closer by the end of the year, that would be great"

Lewis Hamilton

However, in my opinion, the best sign coming from Mercedes was given by George Russell. Let's not forget that the Englishman started from 12th position, immediately behind Perez's RB19. The mere fact that he was able to keep him behind throughout the race indicates that the double Mercedes podium is not the result of lucky circumstances, but was rather deserved.

"I'm a bit surprised, no doubt. Congratulations to the team, they gave me a great car today. Starting from 12th position and finishing third is a great result, which goes beyond our expectations... Certainly today were the best sensations in the car and even if we look at the laptimes we went much faster than Aston Martin and Ferrari. We put a lot of downforce and we knew we could get the car into a better window - that got us on the podium"

George Russell

And the Mexican's fourth place, result of the mistake in qualifying that had relegated him to 11th place at the start, now puts him 53 points behind his teammate who's leading the World Championship. If the two race wins in Jeddah and Baku had tricked someone into thinking of being able to witness a two-way fight for the World Title, the races in Monaco and Barcelona brought the two rivals back to the same levels saw until last year...

"The Mercedes were quite strong, and it was quite difficult to try to catch them. Russell started behind me, but managed to recover many positions. I don't know what strategy he implemented, but he came into the pits and then had a stronger pace than mine. I had to take risks, but at the same time I could also take 2-3 points more, so I think in the end we managed to bring home points without risking too much. In Monaco I made a mistake in qualifying, but with the pace we could have fought for the win, because we had the pace to win, while here I struggled with race pace and it's something we have to analyze"

Sergio Perez

Ferrari: the updates don't work

As we anticipated in qualifying, many in the paddock were curious about the updates brought to Barcelona by Scuderia Ferrari. Profound modifications on the sidepods and the underfloor which aimed to make the SF-23 a gentler car on the tyres in race trim, even at the cost of giving up the so-called "peak downforce", i.e. the maximum value of aerodynamic load - which promising on paper, but ultimately often unusable depending on the chosen setup.

Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Starting respectively in second position and from the pit lane, Sainz and Leclerc experienced two similar races - net of traffic - with a strong strategic indecision given by the fact that on all the tyre compounds, after a few laps the SF-23 was simply no longer performing.

The only stint in which either of the two Ferraris set acceptable laptimes was Sainz's first, on Softs... But it was clear that in that stage Hamilton, comfortably behind the Spaniard, was just waiting to be able to overtake him without taking risks, given that with Verstappen very far ahead, his comeback would end once he set into second place.

"I've tried all the tyres, but it's always a very difficult circuit for us, with a lot of degradation and a lot of fast corners... I think the new package is doing what we expected, but taking it to a difficult circuit for us maybe doesn't show the progress we are noticing: we have opened a new window of improvement and development of the car, and we will concentrate on this waiting for more favorable tracks for us"

Carlos Sainz

The driver from Madrid looks for positive aspects in Ferrari's Sunday, but one wonders which circuits he is waiting for to show off the qualities of his SF-23: if Barcelona, which has always been considered the most representative circuit of all - to such an extent that it almost always hosts the winter testings - isn't it possible that Ferrari has no more cards in their hand?

The aerodynamics have been revised, while a new suspension layout seems to have been ditched by Leclerc after testing it on the simulator. A real shame, because perhaps an improved suspension could really help in tyre management (at least compared to the current situation, in which the geometries are optimized for a bodywork that no longer exists).

On this subject it is good to expand a bit more: bringing new sidepods not only changes the orientation of the airflows arriving at the rear end, but consequently shifts the so-called "center of pressure" of the single-seater. Having an aerodynamic balance shifted from the baseline means that the suspensions have to absorb different loads than they had to do before the updates, so it is fully possible that this triggers an unbalanced use of the tyres between the two axles.

Jake Grant / Motorsport Images

In the absence of technical reassurances, all a driver of Charles Leclerc's caliber would expect is a team that optimizes the available package without making strategic or procedural errors. And maybe that Ferrari does this while trusting Charles himself...

Not what happened yesterday, when just before the second pit stop the team warned him that they would fit a set of Hards (with which he had had a terrible first stint, which in fact lasted only 16 laps). At the Monegasque's request to opt for Softs, judged by him more consistent over a stint, the pit wall first confirmed that he wanted to comply with his request, only to then decide to fit the Hards anyway. From that moment on, Charles talked no more on the radio until the end of the race, which saw him even in P11 and out of the points.

"The car was a little better today: yesterday I couldn't drive it beacuse of the rear, which swas sliding everywhere... today it was the front, especially in the first stint. We have to work a lot, we have an incredibly unpredictable car... In the same race we put the same Hard tyres twice: in the first part we were nowhere, and in the last part they were good. I took the car to the limit in the same way, but we have huge inconsistencies, and we will have to do a great job. In these conditions it was very difficult, especially with tyre management, which was the most important thing"

Charles Leclerc

Leclerc's body language, combined with the aforementioned radio silence, shows his desire to have at his disposal a car worthy of his talent, with which he can compete for the highest goal. Everything below first place is irrelevant to him, and - it's sad to say - he seems to be the last one at Ferrari to have such a mindset.

Not wanting to dive into speculation about his future (also because at the moment a team change would only make sense if a place in Red Bull became available), it is obvious that at this point the Maranello team has to do something to make sure it doesn't lose - and make available to the competition - what must be its star driver.

Aston Martin disappointment was caused by traffic and low temperatures

Closing the Ferrari chapter and opening the Aston Martin one, the Spanish GP was certainly the least profitable event of 2023 so far for the Silverstone-based team.

Lance Stroll's sixth place and Fernando Alonso's seventh - which would have been the exact opposite if the Spaniard hadn't decided to give up on attacking the Canadian - framed a bad weekend for Aston Martin.

Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Much more could have been expected from Fernando Alonso in particular, but in my opinion, the disappointing performance of the Asturian and his team is mainly due to 3 factors:

  • The traffic Alonso was in for most of the race;
  • The low temperatures of the Catalan circuit, which as well as in Melbourne nullified the ability of the AMR23 to be deadly in tyre management terms;
  • The strategy developed by the wall, which forced its drivers to run too many laps on the Soft compound, which Fernando had complained about since FP2 on Friday. In fact, once the Hards were fitted, the latter significantly improved his pace - until, as mentioned, he followed Stroll without attacking him;

Tight race match in the midfield, Tsunoda's masterpiece nullified

In the midfield we witnessed a Grand Prix full of overtaking and with a performance of a superior level to the others: I am referring to the one of Yuki Tsunoda, who crossed the line in P9 despite a less performing Alpha Tauri compared to Alpine, McLaren and sometimes Alfa Romeo.

Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Unfortunately, however, the Japanese driver was given a 5 seconds time penalty on his race time - which brought him out of the points paying positions, in P12 - for a contact with Guanyu Zhou's Alfa Romeo in turn 1. I consider the penalty imposed to Yuki excessive, who in the end did exactly what Verstappen did with Sainz at the first corner of the first lap: this once again shows a certain inconsistency by the FIA, who this time deprived Tsunoda of 2 points which would have been well deserved.

A rather negative Grand Prix also for Lando Norris (P17), who even started from third position: a contact after the start with Lewis Hamilton saw damages on the front wing of his McLaren, making a pitstop necessary which in fact marked the end of his race.

"Today we had a difficult afternoon. We didn't have the necessary pace compared to yesterday, which is more or less what we expected. At the start I didn't see the Red Bull going off the track, I misjudged the behavior of the cars in front and I touched the front wing. It was the smallest of contacts, but it cost us a lot (although I don't think we would have finished in the points anyway). It was a difficult day for us as a team, but we will continue to work hard to try to improve"

Lando Norris

In two weeks the Canadian GP will "break up" the European season

On the weekend that will culminate on Sunday 18/06 there will be the Canadian GP, an event that historically breaks the so-called European season. The Montreal track has characteristics that - barring fast corners - resemble that of Sakhir, in Bahrain. Both are circuits that feature heavy braking zones and violent acceleration, characteristics that should address the challenge behind Red Bull in favor of Aston Martin, with the aim of recovering some points and regain second place in the Constructors' World Championship, now in the hands of Mercedes.

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