Event: Spanish F1 Grand Prix
Track: Catalunya Circuit
2021 Spanish Grand Prix, Friday – LAT Images
Weather: dry 21.4°C
Tarmac: dry 31.2°C
Humidity : 57.9%
Wind : 0.1 m/s E
Pressure: 994.5 bar
Lewis Hamilton won his 98th F1 race at the 2021 Spanish F1 GP today. He started from pole and won on the Catalunya circuit for the 6th time. It was the 118th victory for the Mercedes team.
De start of the 2021 Spanish Formula One Grand Prix was tense. All cars lined-up on the grid and got away clean.
Red Bull driver Max Verstappen who started from P2 and Lewis Hamilton on pole both had a great start.Verstappen positioned his car perfectly for turn 1 to outbreak his rival for the lead in turn 1.
Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc als had great start behind Valtteri Bottas. He passed the Mercedes of Bottas on the outside in turn 3.
In lap 8 the engine in the back of the AlphaTauri broke down of Yuki Tsunoda. He parked his car in turn 10 and caused the first safety car of the race.
Alfa Romeo driver Antonio Giovinazzi pitted for a new set of medium tyres. The Italian driver had bad luck because one of the tyres was soft. The whole set had to be swapped, which took a lot of time.
The safety car ended at the end of lap 11. Because DRS is not enabled during the first 2 laps after a safety car period Verstappen wasn’t under threat of being passed by Hamilton on the long main straight. The Dutchman could even create a gap of more than 1 sec. for a long time, so Hamilton couldn’t use his DRS.
Bottas was the first to do a pitstop of the top 4. He switched to medium tyres in lap 24. Verstappen who was still under pressure from Hamilton als pitted for medium tyres. The Red Bull team didn’t do a good job with the pitstop, but was lucky Hamilton didn’t do a pitstop.
Hamilton now was leading the race and had a gap towards Leclerc of 11.9 sec. Verstappen came back on track as 4th behind his teammate Sergio Perez. Hamilton did his pitstop in lap 28. The British driver also switched to medium tyres and returned to the track 5.8 sec. behind Verstappen on P2.
Hamilton was able to drive right to the back of the Red Bull and get into 1 sec. of the Dutchman to use his DRS in lap 36. He did get to 0.3 sec. of the Red Bull but wasnét able to attack for the lead.
In lap 43 Hamilton tried to do a undercut to pass the Red Bull. The engineer of Verstappen said on the radio: “It could be Hungary all over again, mate”. Verstappen couldn’t do a pitstop because Bottas was 10.7sec. behind him. Hamilton had to make up a gap of 22 sec. in 20 laps.
Hamilton did what the team expected from him and was at the tail of Verstappen’s Red Bull in lap 60 and passed Verstappen for the lead. The Dutchman pitted right away to get the fastest lap for the extra point. The gap towards Bottas was big enough to safely do the pitstop and return to the track on P2.
The battle for P10 was also very fierce. Fernando Alonso, Lance Stroll, Pierre Gasly, Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel all were chasing the Alpine of Alonso to score 1 point.
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Classification 2021 Spanish F1 GP
Fastest lap: 1:18.149 min by Max Verstappen in the Red Bull no. 33 in lap 62
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