The front-runner of the two Spaniards opted to make the switch to the medium compound during a 2.9-second stop, ahead of his teammate who put on a fresh set of soft tyres one lap later. The threat of Hamilton only five-tenths behind pushed Ferrari to call Sainz in to pit. With the pit stop window open for the soft tyre runners, Esteban Ocon was the next to box for a new compound, prompting a reactive stop from Lance Stroll. The duo continued their entertaining fight into the opening stint on their new tyres, with Yuki Tsunoda joining in at one point only to quickly overtake both of them.

Zhou Guanyu and Nico Hulkenberg came in for their first pit stops after battling with one another on the fringe of the points. Leclerc’s SF-23 had a complete rebuild of its backend after his first Q1 elimination since Monaco 2019, with the result of the adjustments seeing the Monegasque running in P13. Sergio Perez was focused on recovering the positions he’d lost on a disappointing Saturday, taking Piastri’s P10 before being held up by Hulkenberg and sneaking past on Lap 6.ġ0 laps into the Grand Prix, Charles Leclerc was making up ground after starting from the pit lane. Pierre Gasly tumbled down the order after being handed a double 3-place grid penalty for two separate incidents yesterday, falling from P10 to P15 in the first lap. The W14 looked impressively strong in the opening stint of the race, with both Lewis Hamilton and George Russell storming through the field. George Russell was noted for leaving the track and gaining an advantage over Oscar Piastri at Turn 1, not the first of the Mercedes driver’s Sunday struggles with him having taken a trip through the gravel during his lap to the grid. At lap 5, the gap between Verstappen and Sainz was already 1.9 seconds, seeing the Championship leader fall into his usual pattern of battling with nobody but himself from early on. Lando Norris was forced to box for a new front wing after contact with Lewis Hamilton saw his endplate among other debris go flying. Verstappen was quick off the line, matched by Carlos Sainz who almost capitalised on the Red Bull’s slipstream into Turn 1įor those marginally behind in P3 and P4, it was a scrappy start to the Spanish Grand Prix.

Extending his Championship lead, Max Verstappen cruised home to a dominate first-place finish in Barcelona ahead of the Mercedes duo in a simple Spanish Grand Prix.

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