Photo by Mario Renzi – Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty Images
Lando Norris gave it everything, but Max Verstappen had just a bit more Sunday to win in Barcelona
The Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya contains the longest run from the start-finish line to the first turn on the entire Formula 1 schedule. Measuring in at 579 meters from the pole position grid box to Turn 1, that is a lot of ground to cover at the start of a Grand Prix.
Saturday night those 579 meters must have been on Lando Norris’ mind.
Starting in P1, Norris knew he had to close the door on Max Verstappen at the start of Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix. To beat Verstappen you need to be perfect, you need to be “balls out” as Norris rather eloquently described on Saturday after snaring pole position from his rival. That meant slamming the door on Verstappen — one of the greatest drivers the sport has ever seen — over those first 579 meters and holding on from there.
Try as he might after the lights went out, Norris could not fend him off. Verstappen was able to get by his friend and rival shortly after the 2024 Spanish Grand Prix began after a hard bit of racing between the two.
Their initial fight opened the door for George Russell, albeit for just a moment. Russell was able to overtake both drivers with a stunning double overtake at the start to take an early lead in the race.
But Verstappen was not behind the Mercedes for long. Prodded on by race engineer Gianpiero “GP” Lambiase, Verstappen stuck his own overtake of Russell on Lap 3 to get into the lead.
Where he would finish, capturing his seventh Grand Prix victory of the season.
Again, however, he needed to push. In the closing stages of the race, Norris was again trying to close the gap, extracting every last bit of rubber out of his tires, much as he did at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix a few weeks ago. At Imola, Norris just needed one more lap and he might have caught his friend, ultimately losing by less than a second. In Barcelona, Norris could only close the gap to around two seconds, and at the end of the race when informed by his team he had indeed finished second, the McLaren driver was distraught.
“Should have won,” started Norris. “I ******* up the start.”
But that anguish from Norris perhaps tells the bigger story of this Formula 1 season. A year ago a P2 finish, two seconds behind Verstappen, would have been considered a massive win for any team. At this track a year ago Verstappen won by over 24 seconds.
That gap is down to just two seconds this year.
Verstappen may go on to secure his fourth-straight Drivers’ Championship. He may carry Red Bull to their third-straight Constructors’ title.
But this year, he and Red Bull are going to have to work for it.
Here are the full results from the 2024 Spanish Grand Prix, as well as some more winners and losers.
Winners: McLaren
“Not could, should have.”
That is how Lando Norris described his effort at the Spanish Grand Prix to David Coulthard trackside after the race. Norris was emphatic that not only could he have won this race, but that he should have.
Again, that anguish highlights just how much the game has changed this F1 season.
Norris may rue the start to the Spanish Grand Prix, where as outlined above he faced one of the biggest challenges on the calendar, which is holding the lead over the long run into Turn 1 at Barcelona. Norris gave it everything he had, even forcing Verstappen hard to the inside in an incident that race officials investigated, but took no further action on as it was an opening-lap racing incident. But in the end, Verstappen was just too much.
On this day. Upcoming races, however, may be different.
“Austria and Silverstone are two of my favorite tracks,” added Norris to Coulthard. “I need to just tidy up a few little bits and I’ll be on top.”
Still, this was another strong day for McLaren. Norris kept his streak alive of being the only driver this season to secure points in every Grand Prix, and his 18 points — along with the bonus point for the fastest lap of the race — along with the six points from Oscar Piastri’s P7 saw McLaren bank 25 points on the day. That is seven more points than that 18 Ferrari took home thanks to a P5 from Charles Leclerc and a P6 from Carlos Sainz Jr.
Inching McLaren a few points closer to the Scuderia in their fight for second in the Constructors’ Championship.
Loser: C1 hard compound
Photo by Alessio Morgese/NurPhoto via Getty Images
In the game of F1 tire strategy, there was a clear loser this Sunday: The C1 compound, designated by Pirelli as the “hard” compound for this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix.
A two-stop strategy was highlighted throughout the buildup to the Spanish Grand Prix as the ideal path for teams, but those potential strategies often utilized some variation of soft and medium tires. As illustrated by the brilliant Ruth Buscombe on F1TV — whose move from Head of Race Strategy at Sauber to an analyst on F1TV has been a massive addition to the coverage — given the surface in Barcelona drivers want to be on as soft a compound as possible at the end of the race, otherwise the grip is just not there.
But two teams in contention rolled the dice on those C1 tires: Mercedes with George Russell and Ferrari with Carlos Sainz Jr.
Both drivers eventually saw their teammates overtake them on softer tires, with Charles Leclerc getting by Sainz for P5 and Lewis Hamilton overtaking Russell on a set of softs for the final podium position.
And further back in the field some teams that tried to extend longer runs on the hards in hopes of something breaking their way, only saw those tires fade down the stretch of those runs.
For those wondering, the C1 hard compound will not come into play at next weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix, as Pirelli has already identified the three compounds for that race weekend. The C3, which was the softest compound in Barcelona, will be the hard compound at Red Bull Ring, with the C4 serving as the medium and the C5 as the soft.
Silverstone, however, will see the C1, the C2, and the C3 back in service.
That gives the C1 two weeks to think about what it’s done …
Winners: Mercedes
“It’s been a good day,” described Lewis Hamilton after the race to David Coulthard.
Sunday was indeed a good day for Mercedes. The Spanish Grand Prix began with the Silver Arrows having the second row all to themselves, with Lewis Hamilton in P3 and George Russell in P4.
And that is how they ended, bringing home 27 points on the weekend, another solid haul for the team.
Dating back to the Miami Grand Prix when Mercedes started rolling out a series of upgrades to their 2024 challenger, the W15, the talk from the team has been that of “progress.” But over the past two race weekends, that progress has been fully realized. Russell notched the team’s first Grand Prix podium of the season with his third-place finish in the Canadian Grand Prix, and Hamilton made it two in a row for the Brackley-based team with his first Grand Prix podium of the season in Barcelona. (Hamilton finished second in the F1 Sprint Race at the Chinese Grand Prix back in April).
Speaking with Coulthard the seven-time Drivers’ Champion hailed the effort from the team. “I have to say a big thank you to the team because they just, they’ve been training so hard,” described Hamilton. “The strategy and the pit stops were really on point.”
Sunday’s result pulled Mercedes two points closer to McLaren, and also nine points closer to Ferrari, in the Constructors’ Championship standings. With a long way to go in this season, there is reason to believe that Mercedes can truly turn this progress into performance and eventually, positions in the standings.
Losers: Aston Martin
Aston Martin has been downplaying expectations all week. Following Saturday’s qualifying session that saw both Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll end their days in Q2, Team Principal Mike Krack outlined how that was “ … the best we had in the car today.” That meant a podium finish was likely out of the cards, and points were their only achievable goal.
A goal that they could not accomplish on Sunday.
By the time the checkered flag flew both drivers were on the outside of the points looking in, with Stroll in 14th and hometown hero Alonso a few spots ahead, in P12.
Aston Martin is slowly finding themselves where Alpine was a season ago. Just quick enough that the teams at the back end of the midfield cannot pose a true threat, but stuck too far outside range of the teams ahead of them. As the field heads to Red Bull Ring Aston Martin find themselves now 93 points behind fourth-place Mercedes, and with the recent run of form from the Silver Arrows, that gap will likely only grow over the next two races.
Thankfully for Aston Martin their closest pursuers, VCARB, had some struggles of their own and could not chip away at the 30 points that separate those two teams.
Still, after a stunning start to the 2023 season that had Aston Martin the talk of the paddock, things have certainly changed for them this season.
Winners: Alpine
Speaking of Alpine …
The French team began the year with five straight races without a single point to show for their hard work.
But after breaking through with their first point of the year, a tenth-place finish from Esteban Ocon at the Miami Grand Prix the driver described as a sign they were “ … headed in the right direction,” the team has now scored in four of the last five race weekends. Not only did Alpine add to their tally again this weekend, but with both Ocon and Pierre Gasly finishing in the points (Ocon in tenth, Gasly in ninth) it marks the second-straight double-points finish for the team.
They still have a long way to go to catch VCARB ahead of them in the standings, as they trail Red Bull’s sister team by 20 points as the grid leaves Barcelona, but this graph from Formula1Points illustrates the upward trajectory we have seen from Alpine in recent weeks:
Can they keep that momentum into Austria, and throughout the rest of the season?
It would make for quite the comeback story.
