As seen in the pre-race strategies, Pirelli expected a two-stop race. That turned out to be the case, but few drivers chose to follow the advice of the Italian manufacturer. With the constant threat of rain, the teams on the pit wall faced a decidedly stressful race. Now, in this analysis of the strategies, let’s see the choices made by the teams during the Spanish GP.
Unstoppable Max Verstappen, Mercedes making strides.
Starting with the race winner, we can’t help but acknowledge an unrivaled tire management by the other teams. Max Verstappen, like his teammate, chose to start with the yellow tire. Replaced around the 26th lap, Verstappen could have finished the race with only the Hard tire, given the excellent pace on the medium compound. Sergio Perez wouldn’t have been able to do the same, considering his starting position and the strong race pace during his comeback. The resulting strategy for both drivers was Medium-Hard-Soft, with Max setting the fastest lap at 1:16.330. After the updates introduced in Monaco, Mercedes displayed excellent race pace and tire management. This is even more remarkable considering the demanding nature of the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on tires. It’s surprising that they didn’t use the Hard tire and concluded the race with a Soft-Medium-Soft strategy.
Ferrari and the discouraging updates
Unlike all the other teams, the Scuderia adopted a differentiated strategy for its drivers. This difference is certainly due to Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc’s starting positions, second and last respectively. The choice of hard tires for Charles Leclerc was correct until the 16th lap when the Monegasque driver experienced a total lack of pace. This forced him to pit and switch to soft tires just one lap after Carlos Sainz and 10 laps earlier than Mercedes and Red Bull. Around the 40th lap, Charles Leclerc requested another set of Soft tires, but the team decided to put on the Hard compound instead.
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This choice was probably made with a future perspective, intending to investigate the performance issues with the white tire. Analyzing the weekend, we can say that the numerous updates introduced did not yield the desired result. According to Fred Vasseur’s words, now the SF-23 “EVO” has more room for development. It remains to be seen if this development will happen or if it will be just smoke and mirrors.
Aston Martin with some uncertainties after the Spanish GP
The Spanish weekend was slightly underwhelming for the British green car, with the drivers finishing in sixth and seventh positions. The strategic choice for the Silverstone-based team was very aggressive in the first part of the race, with the first two stints on the red tire. It’s unclear whether Aston Martin’s suboptimal performance was due to the progress made by Mercedes or some mistakes on Aston’s part. In any case, Alonso has already announced some updates for the Canadian GP, the next event in the F1 championship.
