What a bath. That Max Verstappen was going to win in Barcelona could be foreseen, practically signed, given the absolute dominance exhibited throughout the weekend by the champion. But that he ended up crushing in the race, with a 24-second advantage over his immediate pursuer, Lewis Hamilton, he did not even imagine. The Dutchman ended up practically yawning, who has made victory routine: he has five in seven races and accumulates a 53-point lead in the World Championship.
The disappointment of the Spanish GP came from the home drivers before an effervescent crowd with 125,565 followers: Carlos Sainz, who started second, finished fifth, surpassed by the two Mercedes and by Pérez, and Fernando Alonso, from eighth starting, could only progress to seventh, his worst result this year.
With gray skies to the north, towards Granollers, threatening rain, the start was given, with Verstappen on pole and Sainz to his right. 600 meters until the braking of the first corner. The Dutchman closed the internal gap by crossing into the interior, the man from Madrid sought the outside, the most difficult, but could not overcome Red Bull.
Hamilton gained a place, third, but gave it up to Stroll, and Alonso, another box, seventh, who would be sixth after passing Norris who suffered a puncture.
Soon the Dutch beast -with medium tires- began to build a distance gap on Sainz, which was 2.2 seconds in just four laps; 4 seconds into the eighth, at which time Alonso lost a position to Russell (7th) and Hamilton, very aggressive, gained the place from Stroll to take third.
The threat to Alonso grew as the Red Bull of Sergio Pérez, who had progressed from 11th on the grid, fell behind. The Asturian managed the wear on his tires, but saw how the Mexican, with the means, approached him by 1.7 seconds (v. 14).
Although Sainz had the greatest risk, with a voracious Hamilton that was close to 6 tenths, within the DRS zone. At any moment the Mercedes could give him the ax blow. The overtaking of the Englishman was avoided by stopping in the pits to put on the media. The man from Madrid dropped to provisional 9th place.
The pit-stop dance made Hamilton virtually move up to second place (8 seconds behind Verstappen), and Alonso was fourth (5 seconds behind Russell, but with Pérez 1.7s behind).
The Asturian driver made his stop (to put on soft shoes) on lap 20, which took him to provisional 10th place. With a new and more grippy tire, the man from Oviedo had to start cutting ground and gain positions to face the last two thirds of the race with options.
After completing all the first stops -Verstappen and Pérez were the last-, the Mercedes, like cats, finished eating Sainz. On lap 28 Hamilton did it at the end of the straight, and on lap 35 Russell imitated him to send the man from Madrid to fourth place. He had nothing to do with the Ferrari, devoured by the racing cars of the star.
Once the race was stabilized, on lap 36, with 30 laps to go, Verstappen was in command at will with 14.7 seconds ahead of Hamilton and 25 over Russell, his two pursuers. Sainz was fourth, but his position was in danger due to the threat of Checo Pérez, just 6 seconds behind the man from Madrid.
Ferrari called on its two drivers to change wheels with 23 laps to go, to remove the middle - which went quite badly - and put the hard one on them and try an undercut. Sainz dropped to 6th and Leclerc to 14th.
Alonso made his second stop -to mount the hard ones- on lap 45, so he went from 6th to 10th place, behind Zhou. He had 20 laps to go to try to get into the top 5 that he had predicted at the start of the race. The Alfa Romeo Chinese fell soon. He was up to 9th place. And also the Japanese Tsunoda; The Asturian was already 8th. And the next one was Ocon; he was already 7th, with 13 laps to go. There Alonso stayed, behind his partner Stroll.
It was at that moment, with 13 laps to go, when those in front made their second stops, to put on the soft tires. First Hamilton, then Pérez and then Verstappen (who howled on the radio how badly the hard ones were going for him having 39 seconds on the Englishman...).
Pérez, with those new soft tires and with more grip, ended up sinking Sainz, striking him down at the end of the straight. He sent the man from Madrid to 5th place.
In front, Verstappen returned to recover the more than 18 seconds of margin over Hamilton and 26 over Russell, who were going to keep the crumbs of the podium. Pérez would end up saving the weekend with 4th place.
With the excitement for the victory and for the podium places annihilated, the only uncertainty in the fight was in the final laps for the best lap of the race. And to see if they ended up sanctioning Verstappen...
Verstappen fell asleep so much that he received the second 'track limits' warning on the radio for leaving the track at turn 5. And another warning came to him on lap 59, for leaving the track for the third time. A new infraction and he would be sanctioned. Although he enjoyed 20 seconds on Hamilton. His engineer was crazy, “focus”, he told him, when the Dutchman conspired to go looking for the extra point of the best lap of the race. He marked it with 5 turns to go. Insatiable, the Dutchman.
