Hamilton beats Schumy record for highest number of F1 podiums
Lewis Hamilton romped to a dominant victory in the Spanish GP as he broke Michael Schumacher’s record for the highest number of podium finishes achieved by a driver in Formula 1. With his 88th win, he was on the podium for the 156th time in his career. Max Verstappen split the Mercedes cars and Valtteri Bottas completed the podium in P3.
New Delhi, 17 August 2020: In qualifying, it was the usual suspects who occupied the front row. Hamilton on the pole, while sister Mercedes of Bottas in P2. Verstappen qualified P3 and his teammate showed better form to qualify P6 on the grid. Sandwiched between them were the two Racing Points of Sergio Perez and Lance Stroll in P4 & P5 respectively. Carlos Sainz out-qualified his younger teammate Lando Norris, who has reached Q3 at every race this season. Ferrari only started as high as P9 with Leclerc, as Vettel was knocked out in Q2, starting P11. Gasly completed the top 10 and Kvyat was one place behind Vettel. Renault had a dismal qualifying as Ricciardo started P13 and Ocon in P15. Brilliant effort in qualifying by Raikkonen saw him start P14 while his teammate Giovinazzi started last for the first time in his career. Then it was a two by two grid as Haas occupied out P16 & P17, Williams locked out P18 & P19.
All cars in the top-10 were starting with soft tyres. The track temperature was around 50C. But Friday Practice showed that the hard tyre offered a low level of grip, thus, to be avoided for the race. The predicted strategy was a two-stop, starting on the softs and then two sets of mediums.
Hamilton had a clean race start and maintained P1. Contrary to him, Bottas bogged down at the start and fell to P4 behind Verstappen and Stroll. Norris too lost out by two positions and fell to P10. As the DRS was enabled, Bottas got past Stroll on lap 5 to run P3 and started his hunt for Verstappen. Hamilton was maintaining a constant gap of 1.5-2s to Verstappen in P2.
The big question mark was that would Mercedes have tyre blistering issues again, similar to last week, as track temperatures were hovering around 50 C. This was answered on lap 10. Hamilton opened his taps and started extending his lead on Verstappen. Verstappen tried to keep up, but as soon as he pushed, the Red Bull overheated its tyres. He was struggling to match Hamilton’s pace, meanwhile Bottas was catching him from behind. A frustrated Verstappen signalled to his team that his rear tyres were finished.
Verstappen’s teammate Albon was first to pit on lap 17 and surprisingly put on hard tyres-only driver in the race to do so- which everyone wanted to avoid. Maybe this was a way by Red Bull to check the pace on hard tyre and if Verstappen could be fitted onto them to make a one-stop work. Ultimately this move compromised Albon’s strategy as he was stuck behind slower cars and was overcut by Sainz who finished ahead of him in the race. Both the McLaren’s were on a two stop as they looked to use the fresh rubber to get past their rivals.
Red Bull finally pitted Verstappen at the end of lap 21 on a new set of mediums, Hamilton and Bottas followed suit two laps later for the same tyre. Behind them both Racing Point cars pitted for medium tyres as well and made way to their original positions of P4 & P5 by lap 35. Renault were trying a one-stop strategy with both their cars, as at one stage Ricciardo was running in P4 and Ocon in P9.Leclerc and Vettel pitted on lap 29 for medium and soft tyres respectively.
Meanwhile, dark clouds appeared north of the circuit, with Vettel’s race engineer indicating rain to hit the track around lap 50. Alas, rain failed to materialise just like it had in the middle of the Hungarian GP. Hamilton now was around 8s clear of Verstappen and Bottas just behind the Dutchman. The one-stop strategy looked like a miss hit from Renault as both cars dropped out of points once pitted. Gremlins struck Leclerc on lap37, as his engine was cut off and he spun in turn 15. He managed to start the car but ultimately retired, later diagnosed as an electrical issue.
Verstappen pit for a second time on lap 41, taking another set of medium tyres to get to the end. Hamilton was not in the undercut range and therefore, carried on. Bottas went long till lap 48 and then pitted onto soft tyres, to create a tyre offset to Verstappen. The soft tyre didn’t work well for Bottas as he was unable to close the gap for Verstappen, let alone overtake him. Hamilton pitted on lap 50 for a second set of medium tyres, as he cruised home to a dominant victory, 24.177 seconds ahead of Verstappen. Bottas pitted for a third time to bolt on a set of medium tyres, to score a fastest lap point and in the process broke the lap record of the circuit. He finished P3.
Racing Point cars finished in lofty P4 & P5, Stroll finishing ahead of Perez as the Mexican got a 5-second time penalty for ignoring blue flags. Sainz finished P6, a confidence boost after couple of bad races in Silverstone. Vettel held off Albon to finish P7 thanks to an audacious one stop strategy and good tyre management. Vettel did 36 laps on the soft tyres. The top 10 was completed by Gasly and Norris. Interesting to note, only the podium finishers finished the race on the lead lap, everyone else was lapped in the race. Renault cars finished out of the points, so did the cars of Alfa Romeo, Haas and Williams.
Mercedes were expected to struggle once again in hot conditions, but they did not. They had a big advantage over Red Bull regarding race pace and also looked after their tyres better. Tyre management from Mercedes drivers was on point as they did not face any issues similar to last week. Mercedes had reverted to their Hungary specification high downforce rear wing with double swan neck pillars and a t-wing on the engine cover. Red Bull are inherently slower than Mercedes and they were slightly worse on their tyres as Verstappen complained of the rear tyres being finished. Albon also struggled to preserve his tyres, especially in the first two stints.Red Bull too reverted to Hungary specification rear wing with louvred endplates and a deeper main plane.
Like Mercedes and Red Bull, Racing Point, Renault, Ferrari and AlphaTauri used high downforce rear wings with a deeper main plane. The reason being, rear stability is essential in high speed corners and sector 3 is made up of slow speed corners.
Racing Point showed expected pace, just behind the top 2. McLaren had a resurgence in race pace as Sainz was able to finish in P6 and Norris in P10. Arguably Norris could have finished higher, had he had a better start. Ferrari and AlphaTauri were similar on pace. Ferrari’s move to put both drivers on one stop worked as Vettel finished ahead of the two stopping Gasly and Leclerc would have finished in points had he not retired. Renault slumped after two encouraging races as they could score no points on the basis of pace-which they lacked compared to their rivals- or the strategy.
Alfa Romeo showed improvement in pace as Raikkonen briefly ran in the top-10. Meanwhile, Haas have to find answers as they looked competitive on Friday but were unable to explain their loss of pace on Saturday and Sunday. Williams will be encouraged by the race pace and the ability to fight other cars. Saying that Russell was unable to make it to Q2, for the first time since round 1, prompting Williams to find answers for their lack of one-lap pace.
*Malhaar Khaladkar is an intern with INDIAinF1. You can read his articles here. We invite your comments below.
Great write up. It’s almost like watching the race live….