Max Verstappen and Two Other Winners From The Spanish Grand Prix. Winners From The Spanish Grand Prix.

Unfortunately, it was a weekend to forget for all fans of the Scuderia. If you’d have tuned in just prior to the halfway mark on Sunday afternoon though, you’d be thinking that the Tifosi’s hero and championship leader Charles Leclerc was in for a lonely afternoon en route to extending his lead at the top of the driver’s standings. The Monegasque driver was over 12 seconds clear of the second-placed George Russell, who was doing a sterling job of keeping the Red Bulls of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez at bay, allowing Leclerc to pull away at the front of the pack. Fast forward a couple of laps and the lead Ferrari was pulling into the pitlane courtesy of a catastrophic power unit fault. It was the first time car number 16 had retired this season, and it couldn’t have come at a worse time.

So the failure allowed Max Verstappen — who was nursing a DRS issue of his own — to pit early for fresh tyres and jump past both Russell’s Mercedes and teammate Sergio Perez. He would go on to cruise to victory, his third on the spin and fourth of the season. Online bookmakers, whose odds and offers are compiled by sites like OddsChecker, now have the Dutchman as the odds-on favorite to lift the trophy in November. And with Carlos Sainz struggling for pace at his home Grand Prix, Mattia Binotto and his cohorts must go back to the drawing board at Maranello if they’re to get back on track before the next race weekend.  

While Max Verstappen was the only one to bag 25 points, he wasn’t the only winner in Barcelona. Let’s take a look at who else will be taking major positives with them on their journey to Monaco. 

Mercedes 

The Silver Arrows’ 2022 campaign thus far has been a shambles, but the upgrade packages they brought with them to Catalunya brought them right back into the mix. They had been roughly 1 second per lap slower than the leading pair in previous races, but on Saturday it looked as though that gap had roughly halved. And on Sunday, George Russell left an impression once again. He had held the wounded Verstappen at bay for the majority of the race up until Leclerc’s retirement. In fact, it even looked like an unlikely win may have been on the cards for a couple of laps. Naturally, the strength of the Red Bulls was too much, but the young Englishman did bag himself another podium, his second of the campaign. 

And let’s not forget Lewis Hamilton. The 7-time world champion has had a wretched season thus far, and it looked to be continuing when he was hit by Kevin Magnussen on the first lap. He even wanted to retire after the incident, but his race director managed to calm him down and from there, Mercedes’ main man’s pace was simply incredible. He recovered from second last and 30 seconds adrift to fourth, a second per lap faster than Sainz’s Ferrari. Another late issue however meant that he had to lift and coast, allowing Sainz back past and finishing in fifth, a great recovery drive from last season’s championship runner-up. 

Alpine 

Fernando Alonso always does his best to impress on home soil, doesn’t he? The Spaniard has won three times on home soil. A fourth win was never going to be on the cards this time around, especially as the two-time world champion had to change his power unit, resulting in him starting the race from the back of the grid. But a mighty drive from the former Ferrari man resulted in him gaining 11 places and securing an unlikely two points for his French team. 

His teammate Esteban Ocon also impressed. The Frenchman was disappointed to exit in Q2 on Saturday, resulting in a 12th place start on Sunday. But last year’s Hungarian Grand Prix winner pulled off some great overtakes on his way to sealing a seventh-placed finish and good points haul for the team ahead of the marquee race in Monaco.