Spanish GP: Mercedes With the Same Issue as Last Year?
The Spanish GP saw Hamilton winning by an astonishing margin upon anyone else; Bottas was 20 seconds behind and Vettel, in 4th, was 27 seconds. A gap that big in the last year between Mercedes and Ferrari was only seen at Monza, which is where Mercedes flew off to win the championship. However, the Mercedes has only been at the front this year at Australia and briefly in Baku. Does this mean that Mercedes are having the same issues as following a car as last year? If so, the Spanish GP was a perfect example of this; the race saw Hamilton escaping first lap dramas and leading the race from start to finish, while his unfortunate team mate was overtaken by Vettel on the first corner. What followed was many laps of Bottas struggling to overtake Vettel, even though he was consistently within a second. Mercedes' Achilles heel last year was struggling to follow Ferrari and therefore overtake them and, although at the beginning of the year, they commented that they had believed to have fixed it, it still seems to be their biggest weakness. Therefore, Ferrari's pace being better in almost all of the qualifying so far makes this season even harder as they can't keep the front line. The Spanish GP was so easily taken by Hamilton with fresh air, the silver arrow soars.
However, the 1-2 Mercedes achieved this year can only be blamed upon a botched Ferrari pit strategy. When the virtual safety car was released on lap 42, Vettel pitted for a fresh set of mediums. This lost him a place not only to Bottas but also to Verstappen. This arguably ruined his chances for a podium as , during the end of the race, the Red Bull pace seemed to be much faster, as Riccardo was seen posting track records lap after lap. But once again, this isn't the first time we have seen virtual safety car causing loss of places for a driver this year. Lewis in Australia saw his race win stolen when Vettel pitted under VSC for his tyres. Vettel later made comments on the issue complaining that it allows drivers to go faster than it should do.
Moreover, Grosjean sees a 3 place grid penalty for his burnout on the first lap that caused the end of not only his race but also Hulkenburg's and Gasly's. The penalty also gave him two penalty points along with two very unimpressed drivers, with Hulkenburg commenting on Radio 5 live "he doesn't look great in that particular scenario...he has to look at it and do some homework". Gasly also commented his belief on how they were other ways to deal with the scenario, saying he "could have braked and it could have ended differently".
Verstappen also saw wing damage in the race after Stroll braked heavily during the end of the VSC causing Verstappen's end plate of the wing to fall off. Verstappen commented later that he was "surprised" he saw no big issues, saying he changed some modes around and managed to make it work, only seeing understeer in certain corners.
Moreover, Raikkonen saw a heartbreaking retirement for the prancing horses as it caused their constructor lead to be overtaken, with him retiring due to an engine issue but, Ferrari have said they should be able to avoid an engine change. The issue was apparently down to a wiring issue and therefore the engine should be used in Monaco, after only being put in after an issue in Friday practice causing an engine change for the Ferrari.
