Red Bull’s Max Verstappen beats seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton to victory at the Spanish GP
Posted Date – 11:59 PM, Sunday – 6/4/23
Red Bull Dutchman Max Verstappen (2R), Mercedes British driver Lewis Hamilton (C) and Mercedes British driver George Russell (R) finish second at Montmelo, on the outskirts of Barcelona, June 4, 2023 (AFP photo)
Barcelona: Red Bull’s reigning world drivers’ champion Max Verstappen won the Spanish Grand Prix with a stellar performance ahead of seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton and his Mercedes team-mate George Russell, extending his Leading the standings.
Verstappen dominated the race from start to finish, earning his fifth win of the 2023 season and his third at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, while further extending his lead in the standings leading edge. The Mercedes duo of Hamilton and Russell finished second and third respectively, while Verstappen’s teammate Sergio Perez finished fourth.
His 25 points on Sunday took Verstappen to 170 points in the drivers’ championship, with Perez second on 117 points. Former Aston Martin champion Fernando Alonso is third with 99 points, Hamilton is fourth with 87 points and Russell rounds out the top five with 65 points.
Red Bull had a good day thanks to Verstappen, while Mercedes improved considerably to claim a double podium. Hamilton survived a first-lap clash with McLaren’s Lando Norris and overcame an early battle with Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, while Russell moved from 12th to the grid with a series of overtakings .
Perez made a solid recovery from an 11th-place start to finish fourth, with Russell missing out on the final podium after the final stretch of the sprint, while Sainz finished the top five, with As the race progressed, he fell off the sharp finish.
Spaniard Fernando Alonso was unable to add another podium finish to his and Aston Martin’s, running to a quiet seventh at home but with team-mate Lance Stroll Together with the sixth place of the Green Machine, the green machine still scored a solid number of points.
Esteban Ocon had to settle for eighth on Sunday after a podium finish in Monaco, while Yuki Kakuta received a five-second penalty for forcing Zhou Guanyu off the track, meaning the Alfa Romeo driver and Pierre Gasly another Alpine driver rounding the points.
Charles Leclerc also earned a place from Tsunoda’s penalty, but made sweeping changes after his Ferrari’s qualifying session – and his first Q1 exit since the 2019 Monaco Grand Prix – saw him start from the pit lane Failed to score a point.
Gasly dropped from fourth to 10th after hitting two triple penalties, Leclerc started from the pit lane after Ferrari replaced his car’s entire engine, Verstappen started strong and pulled away from Sainz. Cut in front, then defended from the home hero to turn 1, with Hamilton moving on Norris before the pair hit the wheel on the exit, forcing the latter into the pit lane for a new front wing.
Stroll used the dramatic opportunity to move up to third, with Hamilton fourth from Ocon, Alonso and the fast-starting Russell, whose travel on the Turn 1/2 escape was blocked by stewards, Hulkenberg, Zhou and the recovering Perez.
Verstappen was quick from the start and was immediately more than half a second ahead of Sainz before heading into the distance, while team-mate Perez continued his damage-limiting practice, passing the ball to Hulkenberg and week.
Mercedes was also in action, with Russell overtaking Alonso for sixth, just before Hamilton overtook Stroll to return to the podium position, as word from the race suggested Russell would not be due to He went off track on the first lap and faced further action.
Verstappen, Hamilton, Russell, Alonso, Perez and Gasly round out the top six and after a dramatic start, the drivers are yet to stop. After completing 19 of 66 laps, Sainz leads the pit-stopping convoy and waits to see how the strategies will come together.
With all the drivers pitting for fear of the approaching rain, Russell used DRS to overtake Sainz at Turn 1 and put his Mercedes on the podium, with teammate Hamilton leading by 8 seconds and Victoria Stappan leads by 14 seconds.
As Verstappen entered lap 41, in a wide moment at Turn 5, he was one of seven drivers who stopped just once, along with Hamilton, Russell, Sainz, Perez, Alonso and Leclerc, the others already Made two stops to visit the pit lane.
Verstappen extended his second pit stop before another wide moment at Turn 5 resulted in another deleted lap time, meaning he had no more warnings to run out of.
On lap 51, both Hamilton and Perez pitted for new tyres, with Hamilton returning to the track in second place, Perez behind Sainz and Perez, with Verstappen ahead opted for the same approach in the 2019 Tour – all three on soft tyres.
With the final 10 laps into the race, Verstappen crossed the white line for the third time at Turn 10 to claim the black and white flag, and his race engineer jumped on the radio to remind him “no risk” that he was ahead of Hamilton.
But that was the only drama Verstappen faced before taking the checkered flag, finishing 24 seconds ahead of Hamilton with Russell eight seconds behind and managing to keep Perez from the final podium position.
