Race week review
Round six of the 2022 F1 season saw the teams return to Spain, where part one of pre-season testing had taken place. Spaniards Fernando Alonso and Carlos Sainz were looking to impress at their home gp and earn some valuable points for their teams.
The gap at the top of the championship had been reduced due to Verstappen’s back to back wins, so championship leader Leclerc was aiming to extend his lead even further. The last time Ferrari won in Spain was in 2013, with Fernando Alonso clinching the win.
Many teams brought upgrades to the track, with Aston Martin, Alfa Romeo and McLaren bringing the most updates out of all the teams. Haas were the only team not to bring upgrades.
Free practice
FP1 saw Leclerc take the top spot, followed by Sainz and Verstappen. Mercedes seemed to have a much improved car as Russell and Hamilton placed fourth and sixth in the first practice session.
Some teams allowed rookies/reserve drivers to run in FP1 as part of the mandatory Young Drivers Test. Nick De Vries drove in place for Alex Albon in Williams, Rubert Kubica for Zhou Guanyu in Alfa Romeo and Juri Vips for Sergio Perez in Red Bull.
Mercedes continued to show form in FP2 as Russell and Hamilton took P2 and P3 in the second practice session, behind the strong Ferrari of Charles Leclerc. Sainz and Verstappen completed the top five, Verstappen a little further behind the championship leader.
Gasly struggled with traction but managed to claim P11, while Norris had damage to his car so his practice session was disturbed. Valterri Bottas had a short session due to technical damage with his car, causing a short session for the Finn.
Leclerc made it 3/3 with another P1 in the final practice session. Verstappen made more progress in the final session as he closed the gap to Leclerc to 0.072s. Mercedes, who continued to show consistency in Spain, were third and fourth, with Russell ahead of Hamilton.
McLaren had a reasonable final practice session with Norris in eight and Ricciardo in 11th. As for the home heroes, Alonso and Sainz, the two time world champion was 13th, while the Ferrari driver was 5th.
Schumacher and Gasly had a troublesome session as the German had a brake fire after a couple of laps while AlphaTauri found an issue with the Frenchman’s car at the start of the session.
Qualifying
Qualifying was set to test the effectiveness of these upgrades, with the teams hoping for the edge over their competitors. The scorching hot weather would prove a challenge to these fierce drivers.
The regular leaders of Ferrari and Red Bull set the pace at the front while the Williams, Haas of Mick Schumacher and Aston Martins were dangerously close to elimination. Aston Martin’s upgrades didn’t seem to do them much good as Sebastian Vettel’s time was not enough to take him to Q2 ahead of Ocon in 15th and Lance Stroll could only muster 18th place. Surprisingly after impressive practice sessions, Alonso was knocked out in Q1, placing 17th at his home GP. Eliminated in Q1: Vettel, Alonso, Stroll, Albon, Latifi.
The first runs of Q2 saw Verstappen, Sainz and Leclerc take used soft tyres to set their times while others like Perez opted for fresh sets. Verstappen would then come back out to set the fastest time and the bottom five would switch around. Norris had a set a time taking him into the top ten but was soon booted back down into the bottom five after his lap time was deleted for track limits, which meant that Schumacher would make his first Q3 appearance. Eliminated in Q2: Norris, Ocon, Tsunoda, Gasly, Zhou.
A spin on his first lap in Q3 meant that Leclerc’s chance for pole position was under threat, he needed a stellar lap to beat Verstappen who had taken provisional pole ahead of Sainz who was second. Good laps for Merecedes saw them in fourth and fifth behind Perez.
Leclerc came storming out of the garage and set a brilliant lap time of 1m 18.750, which Verstappen, on his flying lap couldn’t beat as he faced a DRS issue. Verstappen took second, to start on the front row at the track where he claimed his first victory six years prior and Sainz was to start third. The top 10 set for the grid on Sunday was: Leclerc, Verstappen, Sainz, Russell, Perez, Hamilton, Bottas, Magnussen, Ricciardo and Schumacher.
Race report
On the sunny, Sunday afternoon, Fernando Alonso took new power unit and was set to start at the back of the grid. The home fans cheered on their heroes. The top 10, excluding Lewis Hamilton all started on soft tyres, with the seven time world champion opting for a fresh set of medium tyres.
Good starts from Leclerc and Verstappen saw the pair launch away from the others but Sainz went backwards, being overtaken by Russell and Perez. The main incident from the opening lap of the grand prix was the contact made between Hamilton and Magnussen which saw both of them fall to the back of the grid in 19th and 20th, pitting for new tyres.
Alonso, with a brilliant start, moved up several places and by lap six, he had overtaken his old rival, Sebastian Vettel. On the contrary, the other Spaniard, Sainz, spun on lap 7, costing him six places.
Soon after, two laps later, the same thing happened to Verstappen, going off at Turn 4 and losing out to Perez and Russell. Former F2 champion, Russell, showed his skill, defending gracefully against Perez to keep his second place.
After the first round of pit stops, Verstappen came out behind Russell and aimed to overtake the Brit but found that his DRS issue had returned. This issue ensured an awesome piece of racing between both drivers, spicing up the race even more.
Leclerc had gained a hefty advantage over the others, coming out from pits still in first place with a five second gap. Everything was plain sailing for Leclerc and Ferrari who seemed to be on their way to a commanding win until the Monegasque’s car was plundered with an engine issue and the car slowed down, forcing him to retire from the race.
Verstappen then dove into the pits for soft tyres while Perez then took the opportunity to pass Russell on lap 31 for the lead of the Spanish Grand Prix. By the time Verstappen had caught up to Russell, both Russell and Perez went in for pitstops to make it to the end of the race. Verstappen too pitted for a new set of medium tyres on lap 45, preparing for the chase. Verstappen was on the hunt, cutting the gap quickly. Perez was told he would have to let Verstappen by, an order he didn’t like.
After letting him by, Perez pitted for softs to take the fastest lap of the race and returned on track to claim second place.
Meanwhile, in the later stages of the race, Hamilton had surged through the grid, staging a great comeback when he overtook Sainz for P4. But the Brit was plagued with heating issues and was told to lift and coast, relinquishing his hard fought P4 to the Ferrari and settling for fifth place.
This led to another 1-2 for Red Bull, the second of the season. This sees Verstappen take a third consecutive win this season. George Russell claimed third place for Mercedes. Sainz, the sole Ferrari in the race, finished forth ahead of Hamilton and Bottas.
A reasonably quiet race for Ocon and Norris saw them take P7 and P8, with Norris doing an impressive job having started outside the top 10 and suffering from tonsillitis.
Alonso claimed P9, gaining some valuable points for Alpine considering that the Spaniard started last on the grid. AlphaTauri’s Tsunoda snatched the last world championship point available with his 10th place, while his teammate Gasly did not have a great race finishing 13th, after tangling up with Stroll later on in the race.
Taking their heavily upgraded cars into account (and the talk of similarities to the Red Bull, dubbed the “Green Red Bull”), Aston Martin would like to put this race behind them as Stroll finished 15th after his incident with Gasly, while Vettel just missed out on points with an 11th place finish.
Haas too, did not gave a great race as Magnussen’s contact with Hamilton at the start of the race kept him at the rear of end of the field, taking 17th place and Schumacher fell out of the points ending up in 14th.
Latifi and Albon finished 16th and 18th, a disappointing race for the team after Albon’s great points finish in Miami.
The other retiree alongside Leclerc was Zhou, who suffered a second retirement in a row due to a PU issue.
For part two of the double header, we take to the historic Monaco Grand Prix in Monte Carlo where Leclerc will look to break the curse at his home grand prix and retake the lead in the championship that he lost to Verstappen due to his DNF in Spain.
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