Sebastian Vettel’s fourth place was the sole reward for Scuderia Ferrari after an uphill battle at the Spanish Grand Prix. Kimi Raikkonen was forced to retire after a loss of power. This was the story of the race: the sun was playing hide-and-seek with the clouds before the start, after a night with lots of rain. At the getaway Seb went straight on the attack from third place on the grid and passed Bottas, while Kimi stayed in fourth place. The safety car came out on lap 1 when Grosjean spun off and triggered a string of collisions.
The race restarted at the end of the sixth lap in the same positions. Another 12 laps passed before the team made an early call to bring Seb into the pits to change onto the Medium tyres. Bottas reacted two laps later but despite facing traffic – and benefiting from a tow from Magnussen – Vettel managed to stay ahead of the Mercedes as it came out of the pits. Meanwhile further back, Kimi reported a problem over the radio and the No.7 car suddenly slowed and crawled back to the pits. He had suffered a loss of power, the same problem that put paid to Ocon on the 40th lap, bringing out the virtual safety car.
“My race was going pretty ok today, I was in a decent position and the speed was good. I was running smoothly and saving the tires. Everything could have been alright, but unfortunately it did not happen. At one point I started losing power; I managed to drive around but obviously not at full speed anymore, so I drove back to the garage. We don’t know more than that about the issue we had, we need to take the car back to the factory and check what happened. Looking at the Championship, this result is far from ideal, and I’m pretty disappointed. There is nothing we could have done differently today, but we need to try and keep pushing.” – Kimi Raikkonen said, as reported by Ferrari’s official website.
