Piastri controls Spanish Grand Prix to victory amidst crazy end of race
Oscar Piastri secured his 5th Grand Prix victory of the year at the Spanish Grand Prix, controlling the race from start to finish. Lando Norris finished second while a crazy race ending brought Charles Leclerc an unexpected podium position for Ferrari.
When the lights went out to start the Spanish Grand Prix, Piastri enjoyed a very strong start and didn't come under threat of being overtaken. Norris meanwhile was off a bit worse off the line and soon has Verstappen alongside him. As the Dutchman enjoyed the outside entry line he was able to carry more speed and take second.
At the end of that lap Norris had already dropped more than a second off Verstappen while the Red Bull driver put on the pressure on the leader.
George Russell attempted to take Norris on the inside of Turn 1 but it cost him as Hamilton and also Leclerc later managed to gain positions and get past the Mercedes. This left Russell in 6th, followed by Antonelli, Gasly, Hadjar and Alonso. The latter attempted to make a pass on the Racing Bulls driver but had to back out of it before the final corner, making him vulnerable to Hulkenberg who gladly took the opportunity and moved up into 10th, an impressive first lap after having started 15th.
In front, after that initial heat by Verstappen, Piastri increased the pace, building up a 3-second advantage on the Red Bull by lap 7. Norris stuck quite closely to Verstappen while the Ferraris got involved in an team battle with Leclerc seemingly able to go faster. On lap 10, Hamilton is told to swap the cars, allowing Leclerc past at a time when the duo was 6s behind Norris and 10s behind the race leader.
On lap 7 Albon was the first driver to pit, soon followed by Tsunoda.
No stops yet in front even though Verstappen was clearly suffering more degradation than the McLarens. After a blocked move from Norris on lap 12, Turn 1 of lap 13 was the good one for Norris. Having closed in with DRS it was an easy pass, bring the McLaren duo in front again with just 4 seconds among them.
Verstappen pitted soon after that, returning to the track in 8th position, closely behind Hadjar and 7s ahead of Lawson. Half a lap earlier, Alonso was still there but the Spaniard uncharacteristically went wide at Turn 5 and fell behind Bortoleto. Alonso went on to pit for mediums, returning to the track dead last.
After Verstappen fought his wast past the two Mercedes on his fresh soft tyres and the Ferrari duo pitted, Norris was boxed on lap 22, returning to the track with medium tyres and 10 seconds behind Verstappen. Piastri got pitted one lap later, also switching to mediums and rejoining pretty much halfway between Verstappen, the new race leader, and Norris.
On lap 30, with still 3 seconds in hand over Piastri, Verstappen was pitted again. This time he changed to medium tyres and rejoined in 4th position, just ahead of Hamilton and 4 seconds behind Leclerc. The three stop strategy for Verstappen seemed to fold out nicely as the Dutchman was obviously able to push his tyres harder, quickly running away from Hamilton and towards Leclerc before passing the Ferrari on lap 36.
Verstappen's performance started to alert McLaren. While both drivers sort of indicated they were close to the limit of their medium tyres, Verstappen's better pace forced both Piastri and Norris to up their pace a bit, knowing they all still had to do one more stop.
On lap 41, Leclerc pitted from 4th and changed to a new set of mediums, an possibility the top three didn't have. At that time, Piastri was only 2.5 seconds ahead of Norris and another 4 second ahead of Verstappen.
Russell pitted on lap 43, taking on fresh softs with 24 laps remaining.
Another 5 laps later Verstappen pitted for a new set of softs, returning to the track in the tracks of Tsunoda who was just passing Ocon. Tsunoda got out of the way as quickly as he could though but McLaren were covered with a stop for Norris right away, enabling Norris to come out still ahead of Verstappen, albeit just one second, down from a 4 second advantage before the stops.
Piastri was pitted the next lap and returned to the track 3.6 seconds ahead of Norris. Verstappen set the fastest lap and was very close to Norris on that finish line passing but the slipstream of the Williams of Sainz gave Norris DRS and no chance for Verstappen to attempt an overtake.
Despite some antics to lap some cars in the next laps, Norris easily held position and the situation seemed stale until on lap 56 Antonelli's engine failed with the oil sprayed on track making it unable to him to anything else but to go straight on into the gravel and park his car. This forced a car clearance, in this case accompanied by a Safety Car period.
Piastri, Norris, Verstappen and most others pitted right away. Verstappen was interestingly put on the hard tyre with the team claiming it was the only option. Everybody else was on soft tyres while Ocon had mediums. That obviously meant Verstappen was in for an interesting restart as the softs were expected to be up to speed much faster.
So behind the safety car, Leclerc was 4th, then Russell, Hamilton, Hadjar, Hulkenberg, Gasly, Lawson, Ocon, Bortoleto, Alonso, Bearman, Tsunoda, Sainz and Colapino.
On lap 61, surely at least one lap too late, the race was on again.
Both McLarens were off to a solid start while Verstappen had no rear grip and saw Leclerc breeze past on the main straight. Russell attempted to sneek in as well but as Verstappen chose the bypass when Russell bumped wheels with him he sort of easily maintained 4th.
While Verstappen kept on complaining about Leclerc having to give the position back, Russell got past Verstappen at the exit of Turn 4 until Verstappen returned violently and bumped wheels against Russell, forcing him to go wide and let Verstappen maintain 4th. Half a lap later, Verstappen then still opted to let Russell through, interestingly in the penultimate corner to once again give himself a chance for DRS and an overtake. That failed, so Russell maintained 5th and Verstappen was subsequently handed a 10 second penalty for the collision with Russell.
Meanwhile Hulkenberg made it past Hamilton and Alonso finished 10, having made up 4 positions in the last 5 laps.
It was an absolutely crazy end of the race with the McLaren duo taking a perfect 1-2 victory and Leclerc securing third for Ferrari.
