6th June 2023

Spain 2023- Max points for Max in Spain

The Spanish GP has always been home to some explosive racing and with rain falling on Saturday this weekend was no different.

With Naiomi Schiff calling it a “Fernando Alonso festival” on Sky Sports F1 UK, there was a buzz in the air for both hometown heroes, Alonso and Carlos Sainz.

After a good qualifying for the Ferrari driver, Sainz was starting the race in P2 with Max Verstappen ahead of him in P1 and Lando Norris behind in P3 which was a shock to most people including the Dutch driver who had to double take after seeing the McLaren in the 3rd place spot after the session. Alonso had a hard Q3 session after only getting one fast lap which placed him in P8.

Source: F1i

Pierre Gasly was handed two three-place grid penalties after two separate instances of impeding drivers which meant he fell from P4 to P10.

The main talk for the weekend was the fact that the last chicane had gone which meant the cars could travel faster through the corner.

The weekend attendance for the race was 284,066 and no one knew when the rain would be expected they knew that the rain was coming but the fans who were hoping for rain during the race were disappointed because the rain didn’t arrive until after the race had finished.

When the lights went out Verstappen lead with Sainz close behind, the battle for first place was brief but respectful as they turned the first corner of the race. Geroge Russel made up three places after getting a good start but took to the escape road instead of going side by side with Nico Hulkenberg and Oscar Piastri into the corner.

Lewis Hamiton got past Norris but as the McLaren fought back, they collided which sent Norris tumbling down the order and he had to pit for a new front wing which left him at the back of the pack.

At the start of lap 2 of the race, Verstappen led with Carlos behind him and Lance Stroll in third, his teammate had moved up to 6^th place.

Hamilton soon moved up into the podium spot after overtaking Lance on lap 8 a lap later than his teammate who moved up to 6^th after overtaking Alonso. Both Mercedes looked like the new upgrades to the cars were working with fast race pace which left them fighting for the podium places.

Verstappen was soon zooming ahead setting a comfortable gap between himself and 2^nd place, the gap was so big that the Dutch driver pitted twice throughout the race and both times stayed in first place despite the average pitstop being around 20 seconds.

With Red Bull pulling a comfortable lead fan’s focus would have been on the mid-field battles between both Haas cars, both Alfa Romeo cars and both AlfaTauri cars.

The battles gave the fans lots of overtakes including contact between Yuki Tsunoda and Zhou Guanyu with the stewards giving the Japanese driver a 5-second penalty for forcing the Chinese man off the track.

The fastest lap pinged between different drivers throughout the race but finally settled with Verstappen near the closing stages of the race. The Red Bull driver had been warned multiple times about track limits and received the black and white flag but with his comfortable lead, he could settle down and enjoy the race.

The Spanish GP became the grand prix this year with no retirements and Verstappen celebrated seven years since his first win which was in Spain in 2016 with another 1^st place finish.