[Porcupine]

Originally Posted by GTO

What a gripping race .

After a long, long time, I'm seeing a team-mate being used to slow a competitor down (Bottas on Vettel) and also dummy pitstops (Mercedes just when the virtual safety car was announced).

Hamilton & Vettel both drove like true champions. Mercedes' strategy was hard to understand at first, but they clearly knew what they were doing.

Both those moves were thrilling! Bottas gave Hamilton nearly a 4 second advantage by keeping Vettel struggling to overtake him. Even the dummy pit stop was a brilliant move, but at the same time goes to show how crucial pit-stop timing has become. You win the race mainly on strategy these days.

Also there could have been a chance towards the end that Vettel's Medium compound would come to life while Hamilton's soft tyres started wearing out, but clearly softs were the way do go with lesser degradation than the harder compound.

[ach1lles]

Originally Posted by deetjohn

The race became boring once Lewis took the position back from Vettel on track.

Originally Posted by GTO

What a gripping race .

After a long, long time, I'm seeing a team-mate being used to slow a competitor down (Bottas on Vettel) and also dummy pitstops (Mercedes just when the virtual safety car was announced).

Hamilton & Vettel both drove like true champions. Mercedes' strategy was hard to understand at first, but they clearly knew what they were doing.

So I saw Vettel not let Hamilton pass by on his exit and was ecstatic, but then had to answer a very important call, from the, er.. backside. By the time I came back out, boom! Hamilton was well on his way. I thought we'd have a race on our hands but Vettel just couldn't match up by then.

Usually the Catalunya race isn't very interesting but this one was pretty gripping

[GTO]

Tears to smiles for this li'l kid. Awesome gesture by Kimi:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTwTt16sZRM

[sgiitk]

Originally Posted by GTO

Tears to smiles for this li'l kid. Awesome gesture by Kimi:
https://www.Youtube.com/watch?v=OTwTt16sZRM

Excellent PR by Ferrari.
As for the race once again Hamilton (I do not like him) did show his talent for making tyres last long. Also, running medium tyres in the middle was brilliant. A very enjoyable and eventful race. Now i think the next event is the Monte Carlo circus.

[SchumiFan]

Softs were the tires to be on this race and Ferrari spent the minimum of time on them. Unlucky that they got the VSC at the time it did.

Can't wait for Monaco and see how the teams cope there. Could the LWB of Merc pose an issue? Could RB give a bigger challenge on the streets? Will Ferrari finally get a win after a decade and half (last win in 2001)?

[Hatari]

Fantastic race up front! This is turning out to be a great battle.. nice to see the Merc strategy guys finally earning their keep after 3 years of practically being on holiday!

The 2 top teams are on a different planet, lapping everyone upto 4th place.

Shame about Alonso's 2nd corner incident, being higher up would have given us a better idea on pace.

[Makin Rulesz]

Final race results


Good race strategy won the race for Hamilton. He was well supported by his teammate by keeping Vettel behind him for few laps. Ferrari made their first mistake by pitting Vettel early despite having the track position. They should have gone for that extra pit stop by the end where they had nothing to lose. Next car on the track was almost a lap behind and it would not have hurt them in terms of final race result in case it did not work. Lucky day for Ricciardo to get an unexpected podium.
DNF's to Top 3 drivers meant the mid and low string teams are into points. Both Force India drivers to finish on 4th and 5th positions and so does both Toro Rosso drivers. Extreme 1 stop race by Sauber meant Wehrlein got the first points of the season for them. If not for the 5s penalty he would have finished one place higher.

Driver Standings



Vettel's lead in the championship table is now cut short to only 6 points, but he is the only driver to finish on podium in all the races till now.

Constructor Standings



Not a big change here since one car each from the leading teams did not finish the race. Big gains to Force India to consolidate the fourth position. Now with Suaber too scoring the points in this race, Mclaren are the only team to still score a point this season.



What was Alonso celebrating? Seeing the chequered flag for the first time this season or happy to be not featuring in the next race.

[sun_king]

Originally Posted by SchumiFan

Softs were the tires to be on this race and Ferrari spent the minimum of time on them. Unlucky that they got the VSC at the time it did.
<snip>

Exactly, Hamilton spent 15 laps on the Mediums while Seb ran practically double that distance with 29 laps on Medium. Personally I feel that Ferrari should have let the Merc come within DRS range in the first stint prompting Hamilton to have a go at Seb and thereby shortening his tire life. By pitting at Lap 14 they gifted Hamilton seven more laps on Softs in the clean air. In the second stint Hamilton proved that the Softs can run for 30+ laps at race pace.

"Ifs" and "buts" aside, Merc had the better strategy and they got a well deserved victory. The Spanish GP was a fine example of how champions race, how team mates block and conclusive evidence that the Iceman is warm inside.

[SchumiFan]

Originally Posted by sun_king

Exactly, Hamilton spent 15 laps on the Mediums while Seb ran practically double that distance with 29 laps on Medium.

I felt they could have gone with softs all the way and taken up meds on the last 5 laps or so, just to see how long the softs were going to last. They came directly in front of Hamilton with the slower tires. The race was over there.

Bottas was not a problem and a change of strategy wasn't going to affect the final 1/2 position. Hindsight is 20/20. Happy that the car is working everywhere and on all tires though. I had a sinking feeling it could be like the time Alonso fit the medium tires and just vanished from the race after leading them at one stage. 2011 I think.

[thatfastdude19]

Spanish Grand Prix!

An epic battle between Hamilton and Vettle. Ferrari could have bagged the win with a better strategy. Vettel's overtake on Bottas was mega!

P7 for Alonso in qualifying and P12 at the end, despite a poor first lap, gives me a reason to hope for McLaren-Honda.

Real fun.

[RoadSurfer]

Vettel had to change his new PU which was his second for the season after a problem had occurred at the end of the 3rd free practice. I think this can be a deciding factor for the championship. He still can use the second PU without any penalties but this also means that he now has only 1 PU left which can have any upgrades.

[avdhesh15]

What a race! After a long, long time, we saw a gripping race. Mercedes were simply brilliant with their strategy. When Ferrari thought they would get the undercut with the earlier stop, Mercedes sprung an awesome surprise by fitting the mediums. Obviously they had the data to prove that the softs would last till the end (or took a calculated risk). That along with using Bottas to block Vettel was great stuff and being seen after ages.

Originally Posted by GTO

Tears to smiles for this li'l kid. Awesome gesture by Kimi:
https://www.Youtube.com/watch?v=OTwTt16sZRM

Ironically, the kid's guardian is wearing a Mercedes hat!

[ecenandu]

Originally Posted by avdhesh15

Ironically, the kid's guardian is wearing a Mercedes hat!

The kid's name is Thomas and his parents are sitting behind him. The chap wearing the Merc cap is not his guardian.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRdC208DZNc

[asr245]

Very interesting Spanish GP. Was hoping for a fight back from Vettel towards the end but that didn't happen. Another interesting thing was to hear Hamilton breathing heavily on the radio. Glad to know they are being pushed. No tire complains from any driver too. So racing has gotten better.

Kudos to liberty for the hugely positive PR act they pulled.

[deetjohn]

Originally Posted by asr245

Another interesting thing was to hear Hamilton breathing heavily on the radio. Glad to know they are being pushed.

That's because Lewis and Mercedes took an extreme measure. Hamilton gives up his drinks bottle to save weight

Mercedes has been working hard to bring down the weight of its W08 challenger, after starting the campaign struggling to get near the 728kg weight limit for car and driver. Although improvements have been made over the course of the first five races, the team still needs to find further savings so it can start using ballast to help better balance the car.

So on the edge is Mercedes, and so close is the fight with Ferrari, that Hamilton has elected to sacrifice having drinks during the race to help save a bit more weight. The lack of liquid will help shave off a vital kilogram or two at the start of the race.

We should be glad that's how tight the competition is this year. But, they really shouldn't do it. Lewis is a very fit athlete, but this is dangerous.



Now some videos from the official channel:

This wouldn't have happened in the Bernie era for sure. Kudos to the camera man for picking out Thomas and the quick thinking F1 comms manager. I read it was a lady.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ef6PcZIKnU4

And the Best Of Team Radio.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwhBl-kLyz4