MERCEDES AMG POWERFUL, ANOTHER WIN FOR LEWIS HAMILTON

Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton edged a close strategic battle with Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen to claim victory at the Spanish Grand Prix, working a two-stop strategy to recover a lead lost to the Dutchman at the race start as Red Bull tried to keep Verstappen’s tyres alive on a one-stop plan.

At the race start, front-row starter Verstappen made a better start than polesitter Hamilton and on the long run to Turn 1 he managed to move ahead of the Mercedes driver before holding a strong line through Turn 1 to seize the lead.

In doing so the Red Bull driver forced Hamilton wide and the Mercedes man recovered he held up team-mate Valtteri Bottas. The dselaye allowed Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc to sneak past the Finn and steal third place. Behind Bottas McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo climbed from P7 on the grid to fifth at the start while Sergio Pérez in the second Red Bull passed the second Ferrari if Carlos Sainz and Alpine’s Esteban Ocon.

On lap nine Yuki Tsunoda’s AlphaTauri slowed and the Japanese driver was forced to stop at the edge of the circuit at Turn 10. That brought out the safety car and when racing resumed on lap 11 Verstappen controlled the re-start well to keep his lead ahead of Hamilton and Leclerc.

Bottas made his first stop on lap 23 and successfully undercut Leclerc to vault the Ferrari driver who waited until lap 28 to shed his starting soft tyres.

Verstappen made his first pit stop of the race at the end of lap 24 but the halt was a slow one as a problem with the rear left kept the Red Bull driver stationary for 4.2 seconds. He rejoined in third position but soon began to claw back time on Hamilton who now led.

Mercedes didn’t immediately respond to Verstappen’s stop and Hamilton stayed out for a further five laps before making a pit stop for medium tyre. The Mercedes driver resumed six seconds behind Max but armed with fresher tyres he quickly began to reel in the Red Bull and at half distance he pulled into DRS range.

Then, at the end of lap 42, Hamilton suddenly arrowed into the pit lane and took on a second set of medium tyres. The Mercedes driver emerged in third place behind Bottas and 23 seconds behind Verstappen who stayed out on track to keep track position and hope his rapidly ageing medium tyres would hold enough pace to keep Hamilton at bay.

But as the race wore on that hope looked increasingly forlorn. With 15 laps to go Hamilton had halved the gap to the Dutchman and a handful of laps later the gap was down to 3.0s. On lap 60 Hamilton got DRS on the pit straight and powered past the helpless Dutchman into Turn 1.

With the win now beyond Verstappen, Red Bull pitted the Dutchman at the end of the same lap for a new set of soft tyres and on lap 62 he set a lap of 1:18.149 the bag the point for fastest lap.

Four laps later Hamilton crossed the line to take his 98th win and his third of the season ahead of Verstappen, Bottas, Leclerc and Pérez. Ricciardo took sixth place ahead of Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, while McLaren’s Lando Norris took eight place. Ninth place in the race went to Alpine’s Esteban Ocon and the final point on offer went to Pierre Gasly.

Spanish Grand Prix – Race 66 laps, 308.424km., Weather: Sunny.
CLASSIFIED:
P.	DRIVER	TEAM	TIME/GAP
1.	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes AMG	1h33:07.680
2.	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	+ 15.841
3.	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes AMG	+ 26.610
4.	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	+ 54.616
5.	Sergio Pérez	Red Bull	+ 1:03.671
6.	Daniel Ricciardo	McLaren	+ 1:13.768
7.	Carlos Sainz Jr.	Ferrari	+ 1:14.670
8.	Lando Norris	McLaren	+ 1 lap
9.	Esteban Ocon	Alpine	+ 1 lap
10.	Pierre Gasly	AlphaTauri	+ 1 lap
11.	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin	+ 1 lap
12.	Kimi Räikkönen	Alfa Romeo	+ 1 lap
13.	Sebastian Vettel	Aston Martin	+ 1 lap
14.	George Russell	Williams	+ 1 lap
15.	Antonio Giovinazzi	Alfa Romeo	+ 1 lap
16.	Nicholas Latifi	Williams	+ 1 lap
17.	Fernando Alonso	Alpine	+ 1 lap
18.	Mick Schumacher	Haas	+ 2 laps
19.	Nikita Mazepin	Haas	+ 2 laps
FASTEST LAP: MAX VERSTAPPEN - 1:18.149
NOT CLASSIFIED:
20.	Juki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri	technical
HYBRID ERA - CATALUNYA 2014 Lewis Hamilton - Mercedes AMG - 1h41:05.155 2015 Nico Rosberg - Mercedes AMG - 1h41:12.555 2016 Max Verstappen - Ред Бул - 1h41:40.017 2017 Lewis Hamilton - Mercedes AMG - 1h35:56.497 2018 Lewis Hamilton - Mercedes AMG - 1h35:29.972 2019 Lewis Hamilton - Mercedes AMG - 1h35.50.443 2020 Lewis Hamilton - Mercedes AMG - 1h31:45.279 2021 Lewis Hamilton - Mercedes AMG - 1h33:07.680 @MkFormula1 - REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA

CLASSIFICATION AFTER 4/23 RACES
DRIVERS:
1.	Lewis Hamilton	94
2.	Max Verstappen	80
3.	Valtteri Bottas	47
4.	Lando Norris	41
5.	Charles Leclerc	40
6.	Sergio Pérez	32
7.	Daniel Ricciardo	24
8.	Carlos Sainz Jr.	20
9.	Esteban Ocon	10
10.	Pierre Gasly	8
11.	Lance Stroll	5
12.	Fernando Alonso	5
13.	Juki Tsunoda	2
14.	Kimi Räikkönen	0
15.	Antonio Giovinazzi	0
16.	Sebastian Vettel	0
17.	George Russell	0
18.	Mick Schumacher	0
19.	Nikita Mazepin	0
20.	Nicholas Latifi	0
21.		0
CONSTRUCTORS:
1.	Mercedes AMG	141
2.	Red Bull	112
3.	McLaren	65
4.	Ferrari	60
5.	Alpine	15
6.	AlphaTauri	10
7.	Aston Martin	5
8.	Alfa Romeo	0
9.	Williams	0
10.	Haas	0