Spanish Grand Prix

Nate Marcus 5/23/22

Barcelona was the site of the 6th race on the 2022 calendar for Formula 1. Coming into the weekend Charles Leclerc had a 19-point lead over reigning champion Max Verstappen and Ferrari had a 6-point lead in the constructor's championship over the surging Red Bulls.

This was a big weekend for all of the teams in F1, as most of them were bringing a substantial amount of upgrades to their cars to see how fast they are compared to March when pre-season testing began in Barcelona. Teams like McLaren were bringing upgrades to many different parts of their car while Mercedes and Alpha Tauri only brought some slight changes.

Heading into the season the Mercedes team was a bit hesitant to talk up their car despite being the reigning constructors champion. But, in past seasons they have said they wouldn't be the quickest on track but ended up winning it all. Up until this weekend though, we had not seen the Mercedes cars in contention as they had some very big proposing problems early in the year. But this weekend began to show the Mercedes of old as both George Russel and Lewis Hamilton were able to qualify in the top 6.

Heading into Saturday’s qualifying it looked like it would be another front-row battle between Ferrari and Red Bull. After the second round of qualifying, there were already some big surprises as both Haas cars had made it into Q3 and Daniel Riccardo was able to outqualify his teammate for the first time this season. On the last set of flying laps Verstappen was in provisional pole position, but due to an engine problem he had to abandon his lap and Charles Leclerc took pole position for Sunday’s race.

The Barcelona circuit is known for many things in Formula 1 like the chicane at turns 14 and 15 that many drivers find completely unnecessary. But the one thing it is most known for is having the highest pole position to win rate out of all the formula 1 tracks. Meaning at this track you are most likely to win if you are starting from the #1 position on track. That sounds a bit redundant because the farther you start anywhere will give you a better chance to win, but this circuit does not have many places for overtaking other cars so the higher you start the higher chances you have to win.

As we set off on the race both Verstappen and Leclerc started well, but Leclerc held his lead and started to pull away. At turn 3 of the first lap, Lewis Hamilton and Kevin Magnussen collided and both drivers went off track, luckily both drivers continued to race, but they had to come from the back of the pack of 20 drivers. After 10 laps the race seemed to be another classic Spanish Grand Prix with the winner coming from the pole position. Unexpectedly on lap 14 the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc lost engine power and had to retire from the race. This was a gut-wrenching blow to Scuderia as Leclerc was leading the race by 15 seconds with Verstappen stuck in 3rd place behind George Russell’s Mercedes.

This started a scramble in the Red Bull and Mercedes paddock as they were now the ones battling for the win. Verstappen quickly came into the pits to get a new set of tires and chase after Russell. He finally caught up to him on lap 24, but both he and his teammate Sergio Perez struggled to get by the Mercedes with the little overtaking ability on track. Eventually, Verstappen was able to get past him and was soon followed by Perez.

Although there were still a few memorable moments in the second half, after the battle for first in the first half of the race, the second half did not have much action. During the second half, Lewis Hamilton was able to go from 6th to 19th then all the way up to 5th, and secure some much-needed points for Mercedes. Additionally, Fernando Alonso who started dead last in 20th made it all the way to 9th place and scored points for Alpine. Also, Lando Norris drove his car from P11 all the way to P8 while battling tonsillitis. Next week he will be in Monaco for the home race of Charles Leclerc where he hopes to have better luck than last year.

The final results of the race were :

1st: Max Verstappen, Red Bull, 25 Points

2nd: Sergio Perez, Red Bull, 18 points + 1 point for the fastest lap of the race

3rd: George Russell, Mercedes, 15 points

4th: Carlos Sainz, Ferrari, 12 points

5th: Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, 10 points

6th: Valtteri Bottas, Alfa Romeo, 8 points

7th: Esteban Ocon, Alpine, 6 points

8th: Lando Norris, McLaren, 4 points

9th: Fernando Alonso, Alpine, 2 points

10th: Yuki Tsunoda, Alpha Tauri, 1 point

11th: Sebastian Vettel, Aston Martin, 0 points

12th: Daniel Ricciardo, McLaren, 0 points

13th: Pierre Gasly, Alpha Tauri, 0 points

14th: Mick Schumacher, Haas, 0 points

15th: Lance Stroll, Aston Martin, 0 points

16th: Nicholas Latifi, Williams, 0 points

17th: Kevin Magnussen, Haas, 0 points

18th: Alex Albon, Williams, 0 points

DNF: Guanyu Zhou, Alfa Romeo, 0 points

DNF: Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, 0 points