Here is our full text transcript from the tenth round of the 2024 Formula 1 championship, the Spanish Grand Prix, which was held earlier today in Barcelona:
We’ve certainly been treated to an ultra-competitive weekend here in Spain so far with yesterday’s qualifying providing probably the best battle for the leading grid positions so far this season. 66 laps, multiple pit stops expected, tyre wear, differing strategies…and even an outside chance of some light rain. It should be a cracker when lights go out!
Lando Norris’ superb pole – just his second in F1 and McLaren’s first here in Spain for 19 years – was still only 0.020s faster than Verstappen’s own strong final lap, but it’s now three races in a row where the world champions haven’t been quickest in qualifying.
That after Max’s record-breaking run of eight consecutive poles.
The timesheets this weekend on a track that was particularly expected to favour Red Bull going in to event has certainly underlined that. While the RB20 in the hands of Verstappen certainly remains quick, the team is no longer enjoying the kind of advantage we saw all through 2023 and in the early part of this season when Max was able to regularly win at a canter.
As we say, that should make for a great race today – and indeed over the five races taking place in six weeks up to the summer break in August – with Norris having a real chance of claiming his second win in the sport and kick-starting what could well be a first title challenge into the summer.
The Spanish Grand Prix weekend has already been a much better weekend for Ferrari than the Canadian one was a fortnight ago, but yet, but yet… Despite introducing a number of development items onto the SF-24 at Barcelona, the car has apparated tricky to drive, especially in the high-speed corners, for Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz and they start together on row three.
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That could easily have been row two given there were just hundredths of a second between the times of Mercedes and Ferrari cars in Q3, but the gap to the front row was still 0.3s. They remain second in both championships, but Monaco aside – when they possessed the fastest car – they haven’t really even had the second-quickest package since their first win of the year in April’s Australian GP. Charles Leclerc and home hero Carlos Sainz are very much in the hunt with the Mercs’ for the podium – and perhaps yet more – but the SF-24 is certainly not where the team want it right now.
The top teams have only saved one set of the hard and medium tyres each, so they will use the softs at some point in the race. Lando Norris, Max Verstappen and both Ferrari cars have saved a new set of softs, which will make a small difference over the stint, but track position will still be the most important factor.
This race is partly going to be decided by strategy, particularly if the pace between drivers is close. We think the front-runners will start on the soft tyre to utilise the extra grip off the line but after the first stint, there are many options. The big question is will the hard tyre have enough raw pace to be worth using. If not, softs and mediums will be the preferred race tyre. An aggressive three-stopper can’t be ruled out too, especially if the race pace is very fast and the drivers are pushing the tyres hard.
Everyone on the grid is on the soft tyres, apart from Alex Albon in the pit lane who is on the mediums. It looks like all the teams are thinking the same way for this first stint.
Lap 1/66: Russell takes the lead! From fourth place into first. WOW. It’s a superb start. Norris drops to third and Verstappen stays in second. Russell gets into the slipstream of the leading pair and swoops around the outside into Turn One and leads. That’s not what Norris needed.
Lap 2/66: Verstappen is already well within one second of Russell and pushing him hard.
Lap 3/66: DRS is available and Verstappen makes the most of it by going around the outside of Russell into Turn One. There was not much Russell could do there.
Lap 4/66: Norris knows he must go with Verstappen, so that means overtaking Russell soon. The McLaren driver is within one second of Russell, so let’s see if he can make a move.
Lap 5/66: A switch in positions for the Ferraris with Carlos Sainz overtaking Charles Leclerc and contact made in the process. Sainz is now fifth with Leclerc sixth. “He closed on me, Carlos,” says an irritated Leclerc on the team radio.
Lap 7/66: Verstappen leads by 1.4s from Russell, with Norris another 0.7s behind. Hamilton is there too in fourth place, so things are still tight at the front.
Lap 9/66: Race control took a look at the Ferrari overtake with Carlos Sainz ending up on the grass as he passed Charles Leclerc round the outside but nothing untoward occurred so there will be no punishment.
Lap 10/66: Lando Norris is told to go “plus 10” on his strategy, which means going 10 laps longer than initially planned. Sainz and Leclerc have joined the leading four cars. Russell has got a DRS train behind him now back to Leclerc in sixth place.
Lap 16/66: Russell pits but it’s a slow stop! Sainz nearly overtakes him and that is really costly for Russell. 5.3 seconds is the stop time, so he’s lost around three seconds there.
Lap 17/66: Hamilton pits but comes out in ninth place, behind Alonso who is yet to pit. The seven-time world champion is still behind Russell and has been undercut by Sainz too.
Lap 18/66: A 1.9s pit stop from Red Bull, what a pit stop! He comes out in fourth place behind Norris, Leclerc and Piastri who are yet to pit.
Lap 18/66: Hamilton is pushing really hard on those fresh tyres – it’s mediums for everyone who has pitted so far by the way – and he’s all over the back of Carlos Sainz in the battle for sixth.
Lap 19/66: Hamilton aggressively goes down the inside of Carlos Sainz at Turn One and the pair very nearly make contact. That was good, hard racing but Carlos Sainz claims Lewis Hamilton pushes him off the track.
Lap 21/66: That’s crucial for Verstappen as he didn’t lose much time behind Piastri. He makes the move down the inside of Turn Seven, not a place you normally see an overtake.
Lap 24/66: Into the pits comes Norris for a new set of medium tyres. As expected, he’s come out three seconds behind Sainz.
Lap 25/66: The only man still to stop was race leader Charles Leclerc but he heads in now and re-joins in seventh spot.
Lap 27/66: Norris breezes past Sainz on the main straight and takes fourth place. Verstappen leads by six seconds from Russell, who is one second in front of Hamilton. Norris is eight seconds off the lead. He came out of the pits 11 seconds behind Verstappen.
Lap 27/66: Charles Leclerc breezes past Pierre Gasly on the outside to move up into sixth spot, with his Ferrari team-mate Carlos Sainz one place better off. Gasly is one position ahead of Alpine stablemate Esteban Ocon with McLaren’s Oscar Piastri ninth after using DRS to move beyond Red Bull’s Sergio Perez.
Lap 29/66: Norris is within one second of Hamilton. These next few laps are crucial as Norris could lose a lot of time behind the Mercedes pair. It’s important he gets past quickly.
Lap 32/66: This time Norris gets a better run onto the main straight and comfortably gets by Hamilton. However, he’s 8.5 seconds off the lead and Russell is still in between him and Verstappen. Oscar Piastri is up into eighth spot now with his next target Pierre Gasly. Piastri is only around 1.5 seconds behind the Alpine man and gaining all the time. The gap will be under a second soon enough.
Lap 35/66: Sensational racing! Russell goes deep into the first chicane and Norris goes all the way around the outside of Turn Three. Russell comes back at him on the outside of Turn Four, before Norris cuts back and eventually gets the move down into Turn Seven. Brilliant stuff!
Lap 37/66: Hamilton gets onto the back of Russell, who dives into the pit lane. It’s the hard tyres interestingly and a three-second pit stop. Sainz also pits and is also on the hards.
Lap 39/66: George Russell is initially held off by Alpine’s Pierre Gasly as he looks to propel himself into sixth place but the overtake happens soon enough, with the Briton around 30 seconds behind race leader Max Verstappen in the Red Bull.
Lap 44/66: Hamilton pits from third place and comes out in seventh place, behind Sainz. It’s the soft tyres for Hamilton, so Bernie is absolutely spot on.
Lap 45/66: Into the pits comes Verstappen from the lead. It’s a 2.8s pit stop and the Red Bull driver is in free air.
Lap 46/66: Hamilton is much faster on his fresh softs as he overtakes Sainz down the main straight. It looks like a Russell vs Hamilton fight for the podium at the end of the race.
Lap 48/66: Norris comes in for softs and crucially stays ahead of Russell and Hamilton despite a 3.6-second pit stop. He’s eight seconds behind Verstappen though, which is going to be tough to close down.
Lap 52/66: Red Bull’s Sergio Perez was in seventh place, eight seconds behind Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc but has now come in due to a three-strop strategy. Checo exits the pits in 10th spot, below Alpine’s Esteban Ocon and ahead of Haas’ Nico Hulkenberg – but he soon breezes past Ocon and may leapfrog Pierre Gasly in a minute as well.
Lap 55/66: Carlos Sainz moves out of the way for Charles Leclerc going into Turn One, with the Monegasque on fresher soft tyres compared to wearing out hards for the Spaniard. It looks like Charles Leclerc will finish fifth and Carlos Sainz will be sixth at the end.
Lap 57/66: Ferrari think Charles Leclerc can catch George Russell. The Monegasque is five seconds behind and is told to pick up the pace by his engineer.
Lap 59/66: Verstappen and Norris are both still pushing very hard, so it’s not completely over. Norris is a couple tenths faster per lap, but that’s not going to be enough with the gap at 4.6 seconds. Both drivers are giving it everything to get the most out of their tyres.
Lap 62/66: Charles Leclerc is lapping faster than Russell and is now three seconds behind the Mercedes driver. This could be very close at the end in the battle for fourth.
Lap 66/66: One more lap to go around the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya and Verstappen is two seconds in front of Norris. Charles Leclerc gets within DRS range on Russell but can’t make a move into Turn One.
Max Verstappen makes it a hat-trick of wins at the Spanish Grand Prix! He fends off Lando Norris by two seconds, with both drivers pushing extremely hard all race. Lewis Hamilton claims his first podium of the season in third place. It’s Hamilton’s first podium since October last year. Verstappen may have won, but that was a very intense race in terms of pace. There was a cracking battle between Mercedes’ George Russell and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc but the former holds on as Mercedes end third and fourth.
Who else made the points?
4) George Russell, Mercedes
5) Charles Leclerc, Ferrari
6) Carlos Sainz Ferrari
7) Oscar Piastri, McLaren
8) Sergio Perez, Red Bull
9) Pierre Gasly, Alpine
10) Esteban Ocon, Alpine
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