Red Bull Evoke Ferrari in Arranged Win For Verstappen | 2022 Spanish Grand Prix
Between Barcelona’s Circuit De Catalunya and the sea are a range of forested hills that thoroughly block its cooling effect. The air temperature was thirty-seven Celsius as the lights went out on Sunday for round six of the Formula One World Championship, and, while uncomfortable for those in the exposed grandstands and race cars, conditions produced a far busier race than fans have grown used to here.
High temperatures mean higher tyre degradation and the potential for a strategy extravaganza. Even before the race begun intrigue was high. Lewis Hamilton, starting from sixth, wore medium tyres where all others chose softs.
Masterstroke or miscalculation? We never found out. Hamilton’s attempt to pass Sainz into turn one allowed Magnussen around the outside where space quickly disappeared. The collision gave both divers punctures and dropped them to the back. Hamilton begged the team to retire him and save the engine but was overruled. With the distant target of eighth passed on from his engineer’s guesswork Hamilton began lap two on new soft tyres.
At the front pole sitter Leclerc built a small lead over Verstappen and Sainz behind, one which grew on lap seven when the latter lost control under breaking into turn four and spun across the gravel. Two laps later at the same corner it was Verstappen’s turn to go off-roading and Leclerc seemed to have been gifted victory, his closest competitor now Russell, eight seconds distant in his overheating Mercedes.
He would have been easy prey for the recovering Verstappen, but DRS issues kept the dutchman behind. For twenty laps the two entered into a Yorkshireman’s duel of Pythonesque inspiration, bemoaning their automotive hardships over the radio and unable to find any advantage over the other. Both had pitted for medium tyres in the meantime but by doing so on the same lap no strategy cards were played.
By lap twenty-eight Leclerc had enough time in hand to pit and remain in the lead, all other drivers bar Vettel having already stopped for tyres. It was in the bag, inside a further fur lined bag, carried by an assistant. Then his engine died.
Calculating that this would badly affect the competitiveness of his car, he retired. Red Bull had suffered reliability problems in previous races but this time Leclerc’s heartbreak was doubled. His 19-point championship lead over Verstappen was under serious threat, and yet again his pole position went unconverted.
Verstappen vs Rusell was now for the lead of the race, and still unable to find a way past, Red Bul called their driver in to the pits for soft tyres. He would have to stop again, but surely now had the tools to get past the Mercedes. In an era where two pit stops is considered extravagant the thought of a genuine three-stop strategy gave the crowd a second wind in their fight against death by exposure.
The Red Bull cause now fell to Perez, and he wasted no time. Within two laps Perez caught clinically passed Russell around the outside of turn one, on medium tyres, a compound that could feasibly last to the flag. Winning was really was on. Re,: tyre degradation. Russell pitted again on lap thirty-seven, Perez one later for another set of mediums, and Verstappen found himself seventeen seconds in the lead.
His mission was now to stay out as long as possible while setting lap times as similar to Perez and Russell’s as possible. This way when he made his own stop he would either rejoin the track ahead of them, or close behind but with much fresher tyres, making overtaking a breeze. For Perez an unhappy medium unfolded. Verstappen emerged on shiny new softs ahead of Russell and behind him. Red Bull has always had a clear driver hierarchy and on lap 50, with Russell getting ever smaller in the mirrors, the switch was made, and Verstappen drove off to victory.
It was twenty years ago at round six that Ferrari caused controversy by ordering Rubens Barrichello to let Michael Schumacher past on the last lap “for the championship,” but attitudes to team orders have changed enough since then that no-one was booed on the podium. Given the closeness of last year’s championship Red Bull might be forgiven for shovelling as many points as possible the way of their star. They clearly anticipate a close fight with Ferrari and Leclerc.
Perez called the decision “very unfair” but he’ll be reassured that next week is Monaco where even orchestrated overtaking is difficult. With Verstappen now leading the championship by six points Leclerc will face added pressure on the streets of his hometown. The biggest winners however, may be Mercedes, whose airliner full of upgrades brought to this race reduced proposing and made the car far more competitive. Russell finished a comfortable third and Hamilton charged back to forth on merit, before cooling issues allowed the similarly recovering Sainz past with two laps to go.
Zhou Guanyu’s machine was less resilient, breaking down on lap thirty-one- a far cry from fellow Alfa Romeo Bottas who was an excellent sixth at the flag. Ocon followed, then Norris, Alonso, and Tsunoda who collected the last point in tenth. Vettel finished eleventh, Riccardo twelfth, Gasly thirteenth, Schumacher fourteenth, and Stroll, Latifi, Magnussen, and Albon rounded out the finishers.
