Round 6 brought the F1 circus to scorching hot Barcelona, which has usually hosted the GP in May. However, hot conditions caused no surprises in the qualifying. For the first time this season, everyone opted for the soft compound at the beginning of the second session. The marching order was straightforward; Hamilton set the benchmark and teammate Bottas played the second fiddle. Once again, Verstappen proved to be "the best of the rest" at the wheel of his Red Bull. The Racing Points showed excellent performance as well. The Ferrari aces had different fortunes; Charles managed to extract everything out of his SF1000, making it P8. Sebastian was only in modest P11 after his first run, and unfortunately his last flyer didn't change his fortune. Sebastian was cruelly out of the last session. What made the situation even more gutting, was the fact, that Sebastian was knocked out by two thousandths of a second only!
To my disappointment, there was no thrilling shootout for pole. Predictably, Hamilton laid his hands on provisional pole, although teammate Bottas put up a fight. Bottas had set the screens purple in sectors one and two, but especially Turn 12 in the last sector proved challenging for the Finn, who was 0.059s down on his teammate. Verstappen in third was seven tenths off the pace already. Perez in his RP20 was a massive second down in P4. Not to mention Charles, whose gap to pace-setting Hamilton was crazy 1.7 seconds! Usually the track conditions keep improving throughout the last session, but not this time. The top five proved unable to improve their lap times at the end of the session. So there was nothing new under the Spanish sun; Hamilton made it fourth pole this season, with Bottas locking out the front row for the invincible Silver Arrows. Verstappen familiarly qualified third, with Perez making it alongside the Dutchman. Row three was locked down by Racing Point's Stroll and Red Bull's Albon, who were followed by the McLaren duo in row four. Charles couldn't make it higher than P9, with AlphaTauri's Gasly lining up alongside the Monegasque.
It soon became obvious, that the top three was on a level of their own. Not even the Racing Points had any chance to match the top three's pace, although Hamilton was setting considerably slow lap times in the lead, to manage his soft tyres. As Mercedes had been in serious trouble with their tyre degradation at hot Silverstone, it was a bit confusing to now hear Verstappen complain about his out-worn tyres on the team radio. Surprisingly, it was Verstappen, who opened the pit stop roulette in terms of the top three. The Red Bull pilot opted for a fresh set of medium Pirellis, as did the Mercedes duo, when pitting a couple of laps later. The first pit stops had no effect on the pecking order of the top three.
Perez in his RP20 and Charles in his SF1000 drove an extremely long first stint, as they both completed 29 laps before pitting for mediums. Sebastian, on the other hand, had started to the race on the medium compound, still pitting at the same stage of the race with his teammate. Sebastian opted for the red-walled soft rubber for his second -and last- stint.
Dark clouds started to gather upon Circuit de Catalunya in the halfway point of the race. In terms of the Red Team this was to be taken both literally and metaphorically. The sky became very dark grey, and even rain was predicted. At the same time, on lap 37, Charles' SF1000 was hit with sudden loss of power, which led into a spin. The Monegasque's car stopped at the second last corner, but after a few minutes Charles got his car back moving again. However, there was a technical failure of some kind, as Charles pitted some laps later and retired the car. Now Ferrari's honour was all up to Sebastian!
In spite of very straightforward pecking order, Spanish GP was a record-breaking race. During the GP Kimi became the driver with most mileage covered! By lap 37 Kimi had completed 83 846 km in his career altogether, which means, that the Iceman has driven twice the circumference of the Earth! Unfortunately the record breaker was only in modest P13 in the race.
The second pit stops brought no change to the order of the top three. The Mercedes drivers opted for different tyre wear for their last stint, as Bottas switched to the soft rubber, whilst his teammate opted for another set of medium tyres. Max, who had once again boxed before the Mercedes duo, had rejoined the track on mediums as well.
Sebastian was optimistic to make a one-stopper work. The tone of the discussion between Sebastian and his race engineer Adami on the team radio revealed a lot in terms of the atmosphere in the team. Adami asked about Sebastian's thoughts, whether he should go till the end on those soft tyres. Sebastian harshly replied, that wasn't it exactly what they had discussed earlier? However, this was a very clever tactical call from the Red Team, as Sebastian was now in P5.
Unfortunately there were threats coming from behind. First Racing Point's Stroll closed the gap to the German, and with the help of DRS it was easy for the Canadian to get past Sebastian. A few laps later McLaren's Sainz had made it at the very tail of the German. Unfortunately an overtaking move was inevitable, and there was nothing Sebastian could do to prevent Sainz from overtaking him. Sebastian had now dropped down to P7.
Although Bottas already had the fastest lap time under his belt, the Finn pitted on the second last lap for a fresh set of medium tyres. After screwing up at the start, Valtteri desperately wanted the extra point for the fastest lap time. Which he also nailed on the final lap! Imperious Hamilton crossed the finish line as the race winner for the 88th time in his career. It was a record-breaking race for the reigning world champion as well, as Hamilton now broke Schumacher's record of most podium finishes. Hamilton climbed on the podium for the 156th time. Verstappen got Bottas' sculp, which was maximum performance from the flying Dutchman. Perez had been given a 5-second time penalty for ignoring blue flags (when Hamilton had been lapping him). Due to the penalty teammate Stroll leapfrogged the Mexican, claiming P4. Sainz in his McLaren finished 6th ahead of Sebastian. This was the best race of the season from the German, and it was well-deserved, that Sebastian was voted as the Driver of the Day by fans. Unbelievable but true, only the top three was on the same lap; all other cars had been lapped by the top three! The gaps were huge, as Hamilton's winning margin was 23 seconds, and Verstappen, too had a 20-second gap to Bottas.
Hamilton now has 132 points to Verstappen's 95 and Bottas' 89. Hamilton's dominance is crushing, as the Briton keeps breaking Schumacher's records one by one. The only question at Spa will be: who could stop Hamilton from winning everything?
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