Barcelona - Catalunya GP

Lewis Hamilton wins his first Grand Prix for Ferrari. If there is one headline for the Barcelona Grand Prix, this would be it but it hardly does justice to the racing masterclass with a bit of luck that gave Hamilton the victory. It was expected that Hamilton might pip Russell to take the lead at Turn 1 but that was not to be. While Hamilton had the slightly better start Russell did enough to ensure he stayed in front of Hamilton and his team mate. He looked to be in control in a couple of laps comfortably staying 2 seconds in front of Hamilton. 

Hamilton's first stop forced Mercedes into pitting Russell to cover the undercut. Russell did convey his doubts post the stop but it was done. Russell emerged into the effective lead and the pecking order was restored. 

Hamilton pitted for a second change of tyres. Switched to medium and all hell broke loose. He began banging out laps that were 1.4s faster than Russell, effectively eating... no gulping down Russell's lead. Secured the effective lead and then came the vrtual safety car, the first one for Antonelli's striken Mercedes. A VSC have Ferrari a cheap pit stop, 13s a lightbyear away from 23s for a regular stop. The final nail in the hopes of Russell's win.

Meanwhile Russell emerged just 1.4s ahead of Kimi and then began a battle between the teammates for the second podium. Russell managed to cover off Antonelli for the first few laps but eventually had to concede and the Italian passed only to pullnover to the aside due to loss in power.

Behind the leading duo Norris maintained P4 and Max P5. Max had a pretty lonely race unable to challenge for any podim positions. However Isack Hadjar after dropping 9 places fought back exhibiting good pace to climb up the ranks making overtaking on the outside of Turn 3 his own during the race. Eventually ending up in P6 where he started.

Verstappen seemed to have a lackluster race unable to challenge anyone or having anyone challenge him except for a few laps by Leclerc and Piastri. Finished P4. A lonely race by his admission.

Leclerc has been eclipsed by his teammate for the last couple of races. The implicit driver one status is slowly but surely sliding Hamilton's way and Leclerc will do good to pay attention to this. To repeat a cliche - you teammate is your greatest competitor and the fact that all champions are ruthless... Leclerc has to do to Hamilton what he did to Vettel in 2019 where within the first few races Ferrari began to treat him on par with Vettel. Get in close and take the fight to Hamilton just like Kimi is doing to Russell. 

Barcelona Formula 1 GP - Qualifying

Russell was back at the top after a couple of miserable weekends at Canada followed by Monaco where issues out of his control ruined his final result. He looked very consistent over practice and qualifying and pulled oneout of the bag to set a lap prior to the final run that was 2 tenths over what his teammate Antonelli had set. Russell was consistently the fastest over the middle sector and it showed in his final pole lap as well.

Good that he did too because Hamilton literally came out of nowhere to set a lap that was just 6 hundredths of a second behind Russell. P2.

Given the strong performance by Hamilton you would expect Leclerc to be somewhat close or better. However the Modegasque made an error at turn 4 initially seeming to catch the oversteer but ending up losing it an binning it heavily into the barriers effectively ending a good streak having got his brake issues sorted out. P10 as a result. Maybe that Ferrari quick start will help.

The Red Bulls qualified 5th and 6th having had issues all through the weekend and having the Norris in front in P4. Piastri did look the stronger of the two but Norris managed to steal P4 from Max. Piastri's last lap looked a bit out of shape. The tyres have such a narrow operating window in Barcelona with one quick lap being all they can deliver.

It's commendable that Isack Hadjar is putting up some very commendable performances in the last few racea to end up so close to his stories teammate who made former teammates look pretty ordinary. 

Audi has produced a very strong car in their very first F1 outing and the Hulk capitalised on that to just nip into Q3 at the cost of Lindbald who looked pretty strong till then. Lawson has been putting some very strong performances of late and ended up P8.

Williams has had a pretty ordinary weekend and it's pretty obvious that they still have quite a bit to go in terms for car performance with Sainz in P16 and Albon in P18.

The race start is going to be interesting with Hamilton starting alongside his old teammate and Antonelli eager to win his 6th race. Verstappen in P5 and Leclerc in P10 Will be hungry as well. Not to say that there rest fonthe pack will be sitting around twiddling their thumbs. With a long run turn one it's going to give plenty of opportunities. Depleting batteries in the run to Turn 1 may create problems in the following turns especially Turn 3 which is a long right hander flowing into 4. Game on.