
Friend 1: Hey, Friend 2! Did you catch the Spanish GP this weekend? Please tell me you watched it, I have so much to discuss with you!
Friend 2: Of course, I did. The race had it all – absolute domination from Verstappen, joy for Mercedes, surprising elements of humour and, home heartbreak for Alonso.
Friend 1: Right, what an absolute treat we had in Barcelona! It was a comfortable outing and smooth sailing for Verstappen in his rocketship of a Red Bull as he bagged his 40th career win and secured another grand slam at the circuit that gave him his first-ever grand prix win. What a long way he’s come since then!
Friend 2: Total domination over the entire weekend. Truly, no other words for what we have just witnessed in Spain. Almost as if Max was bored in the front!
Friend 1: His only entertainment during the race must have been the bickering with his race engineer for pushing for the fastest lap despite having a black-and-white flag. Surely, he heard that message – a pragmatic, sensible and measured call, by the way – and thought “Yeah, well, watch this!”. Just personifies his champion mentality.
Friend 2: He is 100% taking charge at Red Bull as their lead driver. It’s evident from his racing that he doesn’t wish to leave a single stone unturned to outperform his teammate. His only rival this season has been Checo and even he is trailing by 53 points. No matter how fast Aston Martin has been this season or how much Mercedes claim to be the strongest team in terms of development, there is, realistically, no competition right now apart from the one that may evolve within Red Bull.
Friend 1: Oh but Mercedes had a stellar weekend – a double podium finish, their first of the season and obviously the first congratulations were for their factories! On Friday, Lewis bemoaned the pace of the car and said he’d be happy to be in the points. Then immediately after securing a strong P4 in Saturday’s quali, he said he was “eating [his] words” because his car felt strong and it was massively encouraging to be competing for the top three spots. Really makes you think about what goes on in that garage overnight, huh?
Friend 2: Come on, that was only one parc ferme breach! That W14 seems to be working with the new sidepod design. But it’s too soon to comment on the speed and performance of the car for the entire season. Regardless, it was a commendable performance by George as he stormed through the field starting P12 and finishing P3 and sealing that double podium for the team.
A disappointing media excursion for Fernando, though, as he openly admitted that Mercedes was faster than Aston Martin all weekend. He has had some remarkable drives as a young legend this season but AMR simply did not have the pace to keep up with the front-runners this time around, and Mercedes was right there to pick up the pieces and secured a P2 in the Constructors’ Championship.
Friend 1: I would not read too much into it, though. AMR has comfortably been the second-fastest for the majority of the season and was still able to bag double points at Spain so let’s wait it out till Canada. Surely there will be a reason to jump back on the Alonso hype train. It really takes you back to the press conference at the 2017 Australian GP when Fernando said he’d like to see equal engines for everyone and Lewis voice his opposition while laughing. Where has Lewis been with an equal engine this season?
Friend 2: Bit strong with your lack of support for Lewis, huh? Oh, and what of the Ferrari? A forgettable weekend riddled with vexing strategies and consistency problems. Sainz started P2 but that Ferrari, oof, just eats its tyres compared to the Mercedes. He was easily passed by both the Mercedes and of course, by Checo in the other Red Bull, leaving him with a measly P5 result in front of his home crowd. Team Principal Frederic Vasseur later admitted that the consistency of the car remains an issue.
Friend 1: And that was just half the heartbreak for the team. Charles had a shocking Q1 exit on Saturday, and then a rear wing replacement overnight meant he started from the pit lane. He started on the hards and then pitted for the first time on Lap 17, finally finishing P11 with no points. No surprise as Ferrari makes a questionable strategy call at yet another weekend. Nothing more to say about that, really. Absolutely gutted as a Ferrari fan but it seems that’s just what it means to be one lately.
Friend 2: The other half-Ferrari team, Haas also struggled with tyre degradation during the race. The team was forced to put both its drivers on a much weaker three-stop strategy to keep both cars up and running. Such a disappointment, especially after Nico started P7 for the race, after Pierre’s penalty.
Friend 1: On the other hand, Alpine had a decent campaign over the weekend, finishing P8 and P10 after Yuki’s penalty. Pierre finished P4 in qualifying but was hit with a six-place grid penalty leaving him with a P10 start for the race. Another Alpine podium would not have been possible but surely, the team would have maximised the points if he had not started P10.
Friend 2: Circling back to Yuki’s penalty. In my opinion, that was blown out of proportion by the Stewards. Zhou had sufficient space but went off the track on his own. That could have very easily been classified as a racing incident. What a shame for Yuki! He and AlphaTauri had such a strong weekend till then and it was completely overshadowed by that 5-second penalty.
Friend 1: Onto the other team that looked promising this week, which was McLaren. The team looked strong for Saturday’s quali but just couldn’t things going on Sunday. An unfortunate first-lap incident with Lewis sent Lando into the pits and placed him dead last. He never quite recovered from that and finished P17, with teammate Oscar finishing P13 and being the first of the drivers to be lapped by Max.
Friend 2: Yes, Friend 1, but McLaren is moving in the right direction, according to the team. They were happy with their one-lap pace and said they “only need to work on their race pace for Canada”. I would argue that it’s not “just” race pace, as if that’s an attainable feature to acquire in only two weeks’ time! However, it is good to see McLaren get back in the swing of things after their slow start this year.
Friend 1: Nothing extraordinary from Williams as well! They had a fairly unremarkable race in terms of overtakes or points but Team Principal James Vowles stated that points were simply not possible with their machinery this weekend. Would you agree, Friend 2?
Friend 2: Looking at the car, it’s fair to state that they were not going to be fighting for points this weekend. I do agree with James, they had a clean race with few driver errors, no pitstop mistakes and overall had smooth execution. Hopefully, we get to see them bag some points next time out in Canada, with the track being more suited to their car.
Friend 1: That pretty much covers it for this race. It was certainly an entertaining one, wouldn’t you agree?
Friend 2: Yeah, let’s catch Alonso’s 33rd win together at the Canadian GP!
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