@Max33Verstappen cruises to #SpanishGP victory as @CharlesLeclerc suffers engine failure. #F1

Verstappen Spanish GP victory – Max Verstappen has captured the lead of the Driver’s Championship with victory at the Spanish GP by recovering from a half-spin to win in style after title-rival Charles Leclerc retired.

 

 

In a frantic first half of the Grand Prix, Verstappen cost himself second place after losing the rear of his RB18 racer and skidding across the gravel before making an impressive recovery run.

 

Assisted by comfortable race leader and pole-sitter Leclerc being hit with an engine failure, Verstappen was able to force his Red Bull team to plan a change for position.

 

This left team-mate Sergio Perez to give up his potential race victory, which in-turn allowed Verstappen to complete a hattrick of victories with an eventual 13.072 second gap at the chequered flag.

 

The 25-point swing in the early championship picture sees Verstappen take a six-point advantage heading into next weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix.

 

Mercedes’ George Russell completed the top three, as sole-running Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz fought back from an early mistake to take fourth place due to a late pass on Sir Lewis Hamilton’s F1 W13.

 

When the 66-lap Spanish GP began, Verstappen held the slightly better run off the line from second place on a scrub set of the C3 Pirelli red side-walled softs against the fresher set of pole-sitter Leclerc’s, with the Ferrari pulling away better in the second stage.

 

This gave Leclerc enough breathing space to move to the right and cover the Red Bull off from attempting a lunge into the opening corner to give the 13-time F1 career pole-sitter to hold first place.

 

However his team-mate Sainz, started on older softs and fell back down from third behind Russell, Perez and then Hamilton snatched fifth around the outside of the third corner.

 

But this left the Mercedes squeezed, as he and Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen collided to give Hamilton a front-left puncture and the Dane left the tangle with a front-right flat and both drivers pitted.

 

Leclerc ended up 0.9 tenths clear at the end of the first tour, maintaining the gap to Verstappen the next time round and then crucially lapped 0.3 seconds quicker to move out of DRS range when it was enabled.

 

His Ferrari team-mate then made his latest error as Sainz lost the rear of his F1-75 racer on entry into turn four and went into the gravel on the seventh lap, but two tours later Verstappen made a similar mistake in the tail wind as the rear of the RB18 slid out and the Dutchman ran over the kitty litter.

 

This rare error put Russell into second place but with a sizeable 8.5 second deficit behind race-leader Leclerc.

 

As Perez tried to pick up the role for Red Bull by challenging Russell, the battling pairing allowed Leclerc to further pull away as Verstappen recovered, the team allowed the Dutchman to pass Perez out of turn six to fight the defensive Silver Arrow.

 

But the reigning world champion’s attack on Russell was hampered by a DRS problem, as he suffered in qualifying and had to abandon his final flyer, and despite a change of actuator on his RB18 racer for the Grand Prix had meant that Verstappen came late to the grid.

 

Russell and Verstappen stopped on the 13^th lap for a set of C2 yellow-marked mediums to leave Perez nearly 14 seconds behind Leclerc as the pre-event Driver’s Championship standings leader pushed in laps six tenths clear than his close rivals.

 

Perez was then called to stop on lap 18 for a stint on the mediums to leave Leclerc alone with a huge 30 second gap as Verstappen nearly lost his RB18 chasing Russell, having to catch a slide after clipping the inside kerb at turn eight.

 

As the Dutchman grew angrier by his DRS issue, Leclerc came in on the 21^st tour for mediums, and Ferrari made a solid 2.2 second stop to give the Monegasque-driver a 5.5 second lead over Russell.

 

All by himself, Leclerc increased his lead to 11.2 seconds as Verstappen and Russell avoided any reprimand from the race stewards for a vigorous battle through turn three.

 

But then disaster struck for Leclerc on lap 27 as the Ferrari began to slow down with a power-unit failure and his 12 second lead extinguished as he crawled back to the pits, ending his race early.

 

This left Russell to defend from Verstappen into turn one for what had become the battle for the lead, but the former was given a break from when the Red Bull stopped for a set of softs on lap 29.

 

Verstappen passed the torch to team-mate Perez, who could overtake Russell for the lead into the opening corner thanks to a double assistance of DRS and the Red Bull engine’s over-speed.

 

As Verstappen put in a solid pass on Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas on the outside through turn 12, the Dutchman reclaimed third, which soon became second as Russell pitted on the 37^th tour.

 

This left Verstappen 6.2 seconds behind team-mate Perez as Red Bull closed in on a one-two finish before the latter stopped for mediums to allow the former to complete an eventual rise to the lead.

 

With the Red Bull pit-crew on a roll, Verstappen made his third stop, putting on a set of mediums, and emerged five seconds behind Perez, but one second ahead of Russell.

 

Red Bull used the tactic of both drivers running alternate strategies to call a frustrated Perez to let Verstappen by, and the positions were switched on the 49^th tour at turn five to give the Dutchman the lead.

 

Verstappen went on to clinch the Spanish GP victory by 13.072 seconds over team-mate Perez, as his early season recovery from Red Bull’s unreliability has evolved into a title challenge.

 

The Mercedes pairing were slapped with a water leak to both it’s F1 W13 racers, meaning Russell finished 20 seconds behind Perez to round out the top three on a weekend when the updated Silver Arrows took a step forward in development.

 

But Sainz was able to make short work of Hamilton at the beginning of the penultimate tour to take fourth at his home race, as the Briton was told to lift-and-coast and the Ferrari received DRS assistance down the main-straight.

 

Alfa Romeo’s risk to put Bottas on a two-stop strategy looked potentially promising for a podium but the late decline of his medium rubber saw the Finn relegated to sixth in the classification.

 

BWT Alpine F1 Team’s Esteban Ocon crossed the line in seventh and in-front of McLaren’s Lando Norris who took eighth.

 

Also at his home Grand Prix, Fernando Alonso recovered strongly from a pit strategy mistake that knocked him out of Q1 to come in ninth place as AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda completed the top ten.

 

Aston Martin lost all data on Sebastian Vettel’s AMR22 racer late on as the four-time world champion completed a recovery similar to Alonso to finish 11^th in-front of McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo and AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly who were 12^th and 13^th respectively.

 

Haas F1 Team’s Mick Schumacher fell from a chance of scoring his first points in Formula 1 to dropping down to 14^th thanks to a two-stopper, which left him on worn mediums as Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll settled for 15^th after spinning from a turns one and two collision with Gasly.

 

Williams Racing’s Nicholas Latifi and Alexander Albon ended the Grand Prix in 16^th and the rear respectively with Magnussen splitting the duo in 17^th.

 

Albon was hit with a five-second penalty for repeated track limit violations.

 

The other Alfa Romeo C42 entry of Zhou Guanyu retired from a technical issue.

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2022 Spanish GP – The Top Three

 

 

2022 Spanish GP Winner – Max Verstappen, #1, Oracle Red Bull Racing-RBPT, RB18:

“Of course I went off, I just lost the rear. And I was in the train and trying to pass but my DRS was not always working which made it tough. We had the strategy to get ahead again and do our own race. Difficult beginning but a good end! I tried to stay focused, which is not always easy.”

 

2^nd Place – Sergio Perez, #11, Oracle Red Bull Racing-RBPT, RB18:

“I’ve been feeling a lot of support here so I’m very happy to finish on the podium. At the end it is a great team result, but I am happy for that.”

 

3^rd Place – George Russell, #63, Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team, F1 W13:

“Today was very tough, I gave it everything I could, just so proud to be standing here as the guys have worked so hard. Pleased to be able to bring it home in P3, lots of points on the board for us. Very difficult last few laps, it was a survival race.”

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Formula 1 Pirelli Gran Premio De Espana 2022 Race Results Classification (66 Laps)

 

POS	NO	DRIVER	CAR	LAPS	TIME/RETIRED	PTS
1	1	Max Verstappen	RED BULL RACING RBPT	66	1:37:20.475	25
2	11	Sergio Perez	RED BULL RACING RBPT	66	+13.072s	19
3	63	George Russell	MERCEDES	66	+32.927s	15
4	55	Carlos Sainz	FERRARI	66	+45.208s	12
5	44	Lewis Hamilton	MERCEDES	66	+54.534s	10
6	77	Valtteri Bottas	ALFA ROMEO FERRARI	66	+59.976s	8
7	31	Esteban Ocon	ALPINE RENAULT	66	+75.397s	6
8	4	Lando Norris	MCLAREN MERCEDES	66	+83.235s	4
9	14	Fernando Alonso	ALPINE RENAULT	65	+1 lap	2
10	22	Yuki Tsunoda	ALPHATAURI RBPT	65	+1 lap	1
11	5	Sebastian Vettel	ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES	65	+1 lap	0
12	3	Daniel Ricciardo	MCLAREN MERCEDES	65	+1 lap	0
13	10	Pierre Gasly	ALPHATAURI RBPT	65	+1 lap	0
14	47	Mick Schumacher	HAAS FERRARI	65	+1 lap	0
15	18	Lance Stroll	ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES	65	+1 lap	0
16	6	Nicholas Latifi	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	64	+2 laps	0
17	20	Kevin Magnussen	HAAS FERRARI	64	+2 laps	0
18	23	Alexander Albon	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	64	+2 laps	0
NC	24	Zhou Guanyu	ALFA ROMEO FERRARI	28	DNF	0
NC	16	Charles Leclerc	FERRARI	27	DNF	0

* Provisional results

https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2022/races/1111/spain/race-result.html

 

Click here for the 2022 Formula 1 World Driver’s (Top 10) and Constructors Championship Standings.

 

Round seven of the 2022 FIA Formula One World Championship returns to the legendary streets of Monte Carlo in Monaco next weekend for the Formula 1 Grand Prix De Monaco 2022 from Friday May 27-Sunday May 29.