Spain: post-race analysis 2022

 

This circuit can sometimes be a bit of a tedious procession, but this time the event was pretty entertaining. My bet was red, but this was a misjudgement rather than misfortune, so I can’t complain.

Initially, every driver started on soft except for Hamilton (medium). Alonso opted to take a new engine and start at the back seeing as he was pretty close to it anyway.

Off the line, Leclerc did well to fend off Verstappen and retain the lead while Sainz lost out to both Perez and Russell, with the Briton ending up ahead of both the Mexican and the Spaniard. On lap 1 Magnussen got too close to Hamilton and caused a collision that put them to the back of the field and forced Hamilton to pit early due to a puncture. At this stage, the most successful driver in the sport’s history was ready to give up to save the engine the mileage (his team disagreed, and he continued).

Sainz had a weird spin, by himself, which seems to have been caused by a gust of wind, and put him well down the field. Verstappen suffered the same problem but managed to only lose out to Russell and Perez, the Red Bull unable to pass the Briton.

At this stage (and for much of the race), Russell was Leclerc’s best friend as the Monegasque drove off into the sunset and the Mercedes kept both Red Bulls behind him. However, ultimately the pace of the Red Bull told (despite Verstappen’s DRS being intermittent, to his annoyance) and he ended up behind both (making my bet red, I’d underestimated the race pace of the Red Bull).

However, Leclerc was not ahead of Russell. He’d been cruising to victory and then his engine simply lost power and he had to box and retire. A similar affliction befell Zhou Guanyu. A certain victory was turned into nothing at all, and worse still for the Prancing Horse it was their greatest threat, Verstappen, securing yet another victory (and with it the lead of the title race).

Who was behind Russell? Sainz, who only finished ahead of Hamilton because both Mercedes had reliability problems and had to do a ton of lift and coast (NB this was not the cause of Russell being only 3rd, the problem was only on the last couple of laps), and Hamilton who had the pace for 4th but had to settle for 5th. Not bad given he wanted to give up.

Everyone in the top 6 had made three stops, except for Bottas who was a sitting duck to the likes of Sainz and Hamilton but still scored handy points. Alpine was a dog in qualifying but splendid in the race, with Ocon getting 7th, and Alonso 9th (from last on the grid). Norris apparently hasn’t been feeling well but still finished 8th, and Tsunoda grabbed the final point for AlphaTauri.

Another race highlight was tussle or two between Alonso and Vettel, who ended up 11th.

 

Verstappen is now on 110 points to Lecler’s 104 (the Dutchman having one more DNF to date than the Monegasque). Ominous for the red team. Perez is on 85 and Russell on 74, so if Mercedes could kick on from their progress they may not entirely be out of the equation, though the window to achieve that is small.

On the constructor side of things Red Bull are on 195 and Ferrari on 169, with Mercedes on 120 (McLaren are on 50).

Currently, the title is looking rather like it’ll go Verstappen’s way.

Next up, for our sins, we suffer the annual procession through the streets of Monaco.

 

Morris Dancer

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