Lewis scored the 88th victory of his Formula One career, his fourth of the 2020 season and fifth at the Spanish GP. Valtteri recovered from a difficult start to finish P3, scoring his 50th F1 podium.
On lap 23 of the race, the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team reached 25,000 laps raced in F1. Today's result marks Lewis' 156th podium in F1, setting a new record for the most in F1 history.
Lewis (132 points) leads the Drivers' Championship by 37 points from Max Verstappen (95 points), with Valtteri in P3 (89 points). The Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team (221 points) leads Red Bull Racing (135 points) by 86 points in the Constructors' Championship.
Mike Sansoni, Senior Performance Engineer, accepted the Constructors' trophy on behalf of the team.
Toto Wolff: I'm very happy for the team. To have understood the difficulties from Silverstone, recover from them and come back with a great set-up and fantastic tyre management - that just shows the strengths of this team. A massive well done to all the people at the factories and here at the track for their hard work. Everyone pulled together and overcame what we have seen as our biggest weakness. Lewis was in a league of his own today; he controlled the race very well and did a brilliant job. He managed the tyres extremely well and ultimately his call to go to Mediums for the last stint was the right one. Valtteri unfortunately suffered a tricky start and lost a few places which is a shame, because he had the pace to finish second. The Soft tyre wasn't the best compound to attack Verstappen in the end, so we need to understand why that was the case. But overall, first and third and the extra point for the fastest lap makes for a great recovery after Silverstone and an almost perfect result.
Andrew Shovlin: There's been a lot of work going on in Brackley over the last week to understand what went wrong in Silverstone, so it's really satisfying to win here in hot conditions. It's been a challenging weekend given the temperatures. We did good work on Friday and had a clear understanding of how hard life was going to be for the tyres with the track at nearly 50°C, but we didn't know how we'd be on relative pace. That certainly turned out towards the better end of our expectations; Lewis managed for the first ten laps, but when he started to pick up the pace we had a bit of an edge in terms of pace and degradation. He drove a perfect race and managed the tyres brilliantly. Valtteri's day wasn't so straightforward. He lost places off the line and got squeezed into Turn 1 so had to work through a couple of cars early to get back into the fight at the front, all without taking too much out of the tyres. He was able to follow Max closely and we may conclude that there was a small window where we could have gone for an undercut in that middle stint, but Red Bull covered the situation well. A reminder that they race well and never give us anything for free. Valtteri had the chance for to go for fastest lap at the end on fresh Medium tyres and it was some consolation to see him break the lap record and get the extra Championship point. We're looking forward to a few days back in the UK to prepare for the next triple-header. There are some amazing tracks coming up with Spa, Monza and Mugello and they all present their own unique challenges, so we'll be using this time to understand how to get the best out of the W11 in each of those races.
The 50th Spanish Formula 1 Grand Prix was particularly difficult for Scuderia Ferrari, because apart from a performance level that did not live up to expectations, it also had a reliability problem, which forced Charles Leclerc to retire. The only positive came from Sebastian Vettel who turned things around after a poor qualifying and managed to go from eleventh on the grid to seventh at the flag, running a two stop strategy that saw him do a 36 lap stint on the Soft tyres.
As the cars lined up on the grid, track temperature was 55 degrees. When the lights went out, Charles lost a place to Pierre Gasly, but managed to pass Lando Norris thus maintaining ninth place from where he had started. Sebastian did the same, eleventh as they crossed the line for the first time. Both Scuderia drivers did a longer stint than the others, so that by lap 28, they were fifth and sixth. At the pit stops, with both drivers coming in on the next lap, Charles took on Mediums and dropped to 12th, while Seb went from Medium to Soft and was 14th. The aim, at least for the Monegasque was to go to the flag without a further stop.
For a long time, the two SF1000s were in a queue of cars from fourth to thirteenth places, until on lap 37, at turn 13, Charles spun following an electrical problem. He managed to restart the car, but by then he had undone his seatbelts and had to pit to have them retightened. At this point, his race was more or less over, so the team decided to retire him.
After lap 40, the second pit stops started for those drivers who had made the earliest stops and that allowed Sebastian to move up to fifth. With a risk of rain, the team extended his stint to lap 50 as his tyres were still in good condition and the decision was taken to try and go to the flag. At this stage of the race, Sebastian excelled himself, running at a strong pace while looking after the tyres. However, he could do nothing against Lance Stroll and Carlos Sainz, both on fresh rubber, but he did manage to fend off Alex Albon in the Red Bull to cross the line in seventh place, with Soft tyres that had done 36 laps. Sebastian became only the second driver ever to score more than 3000 points and today's result was a good morale booster after the two difficult races at Silverstone.
This race concluded the season's second triple-header. The frenetic programme now takes a brief one week break, with the engines firing up again at the end of the month at Spa-Francorchamps, for the Belgian Grand Prix on 30 August.
Mattia Binotto Team Principal: "A very disappointing weekend, not just because of the result, but also because of the way we managed it. In qualifying yesterday, we didn't make the most of the potential at our disposal and we know how important grid position is on this track where overtaking is so difficult.
"Despite that, in the race we had a genuine chance of fighting for fourth place with Charles, but a reliability problem put him out of the running. A malfunction in an electronic control unit resulted in his car shutting down, causing him to spin, effectively ending his race.
"Sebastian moved up the order well, showing great tenacity and driving very cleanly: doing a 36 lap stint on used Soft tyres is quite something. The same observation goes for him as well as for Charles: starting further up the grid he could have aspired to do better than seventh.
"We have dropped out of third spot in the Constructors' classification, even if by just a few points. We must always get all the potential out of our car if we want to achieve this goal and we must continue to work hard to close the gap to those who today were out of reach for us, namely the only three cars that completed all the laps of this Grand Prix."
Christian Horner: "Once again Max extracted the absolute maximum from the car today and to split the Mercedes, which was the faster race car, it's the best we could have hoped for. After making a good start, using the slipstream and getting ahead of Bottas into Turn One, Max settled into the race and on a two-stop strategy he pushed as hard as he could to keep the pressure on Lewis and stay ahead of Valtteri. For Alex, he made a good start but got boxed in at the first corner behind Valtteri and he then seemed to struggle with degradation on all tyre compounds. P8 was the outcome of that and now we'll need to go through all the information from the race to try and understand what created that degradation on the three compounds of tyre. The mechanics did a standout job once again today with more sub-two second pit stops and now I'm sure they are all ready for a well deserved weekend off before we head to Spa."
Andreas Seidl, Team Principal: "Finishing P6 and P10 today is a great result at a race we expected to be very challenging. This second triple-header of the season has been tough, and this is a reward for all the hard work the team at the track and back in in Woking, the drivers and Renault have put in over the last few weeks. We've had great reliability so far this year – six races without any issues – which is testament to the great work being done across the team, from design and production, to the build of sub-assemblies and the full car and logistics. We must keep up such performance and reliability.
"Today, the strategy team and the pit-stop crew performed really well. Carlos put in a great drive and maximised everything we had to beat one of the Red Bulls. Lando was unlucky to lose a couple of places at the start, but after that drove with really good pace. We want to use this momentum, keep pushing and further develop the car. It's been another hot, exhausting week and the team have had to get used to working under difficult conditions and covid protocols.
"Now, we'll take the time to recharge, as it isn't long until we head out to Spa and start the next triple-header."
Renault DP World F1 Team left empty-handed from the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya with Daniel Ricciardo eleventh and Esteban Ocon thirteenth in a largely uneventful Spanish Grand Prix.
After disappointment in not making Q3 in qualifying yesterday both Daniel and Esteban lined up outside of the top ten and began Sunday's race on identical strategies, starting on the Medium tyre.
Despite a flying start, Daniel remained thirteenth by the end of lap one with Esteban dropping a place to sixteenth.
Both drivers were on a planned one-stop strategy and began gaining positions as those ahead started to pit a third of the way through the race.
Esteban passed Kimi Raikkonen and Kevin Magnussen on laps 20 and 28 with two slick overtakes at Turn 1.
The Frenchman pitted on lap 34 for new Soft tyres with Daniel in a lap later for the same compound.
It was a challenging second stint from there on, with blue flags for the leading trio of drivers meaning both Daniel and Esteban struggled to make any inroads towards the points paying positions. Daniel closed to within a second from tenth place and Esteban finished thirteenth.
Cyril Abiteboul, Team Principal: "We concluded our first weekend of the year without scoring any points. This is not for a lack of effort or execution from the race team and I believe we extracted all we could from the car this weekend. Put simply, the car is not good enough at a track like this one. Barcelona is a good test when it comes to the aerodynamic efficiency of the car, so it says something about the areas we have to improve. We've made some steps in the winter, but not enough to be on the leading side of the midfield here. It's all very tight; two tenths yesterday in qualifying made a big difference and, again, it was tight today in the race. That's not an excuse, though. We should be at a point where we could be doing better than that. We have a clear area of focus and we will be pushing to accelerate the next upgrades on the car."
Guillaume Dezoteux (Head of Vehicle Performance): "The very hot conditions favoured the two-stop strategy today, although some cars managed to make the one-stop work.
"As for Pierre, the first stint was strong as he managed to keep Leclerc behind and maintained a gap to Sainz. We had to manage the car a bit as the brakes and tyres were on the hot side. We stopped him as soon as we were clear from Grosjean and we tried to use our tyre advantage, as we had two sets of medium tyres available. Unfortunately for Pierre, his entire second stint was in traffic and he got stuck in a train with Albon and Norris. The last stint was very similar, but we thought we could pass Vettel who was losing quite a bit of time as he trying to make the one-stop work. Overall, we bring home some points which reward a strong weekend on Pierre's side of the garage.
"Daniil's race was more complicated. He started to lose ground at the end of his first stint, so we decided to box him for medium tyres. His second stint was okay, but not enough to beat Ricciardo, who was going for the one-stop. In the final part of the race, he was very close but the leaders coming by were forcing him to drop and attack again.
"Obviously, after showing a competitive performance over the entire weekend, we would have preferred to bring home more points, but overall, it's a positive result that confirms we are a strong midfield contender. We will go on working hard to keep the good momentum going and increase our advantage over our direct competitors."
Otmar Szafnauer, CEO & Team Principal: "Fourth and fifth place is a deserved result and there's no doubt we maximised the points that were available to us. It was difficult to fight the top three on pure pace, but converting our qualifying positions into race results feels very satisfying - especially with split strategies. Lance made his usual strong start off the grid and then both cars ran in close company for most of the race. Lance maintained his advantage over Sergio during the first pit stops, until we switched him to a two-stop race, while Sergio tried to make the one-stop strategy work. Sergio's race was compromised by the five seconds penalty for blue flags, but in the end it didn't cost the team points because Lance finished just ahead of him. The team called the race very well today and, in the end, there was little to choose between those two different strategies. The 22 points scored - our best result of the season - take us into third place in the championship."
Haas F1 Team drivers Kevin Magnussen classified P15 and P19 respectively at the Spanish Grand Prix, held at the Circuit de Barcelona - Catalunya on Sunday.
Magnussen started the 66-lap encounter, held in hot weather, from P16 on the grid on Pirelli P Zero Red soft tires, rising to P14, as the Dane typically flexed his muscles on the opening lap. Magnussen gradually rose to as high as P9 as the pit stop phase cycled through and when he came in on lap 29 for medium tires he filtered back in P19. Magnussen preserved his delicate tires and managed a one-stop strategy through to the checkered flag, beating Alfa Romeo's Antonio Giovinazzi by under a second to take P15.
Grosjean adopted a different strategy and began the race on medium tires and rose to P15 by the time he exchanged that compound for fresh soft tires at mid-distance. Grosjean attempted to maintain those tires for the remainder of the race but a moment at Turn 7 with a few laps to go prompted a second stop. The mechanics serviced Grosjean's VF-20 for a second time and he took on softs to complete the race in P19.
Haas F1 Team maintains ninth position in the Constructors' Championship with one point.
Guenther Steiner: "It wasn't the result we wanted to have. It's just always trying to execute, do something to find some magic - but the magic didn't work today. This is where we are at for now. In Belgium we will see what the change in the engine modes does. I don't want to jump too much for joy, as I want to see first how it works out and what it does. I don't think everything is the engine, I think we've got work to do on the car as well. It's difficult for us this year in the circumstances we're in. The positives, our drivers drove hard today - they did the best they could. Everybody worked hard to get the best out of our package, this is the best we can do at the moment."
George Russell finished 17th and Nicholas Latifi 18th in the Spanish Grand Prix. George started the race 18th on the soft compound tyre, with Nicholas lining up 19th on the medium. George pitted twice, stopping on laps 19 and 35, taking on new sets of the medium tyre on both occasions. Nicholas also ran a two-stop strategy, pitting for the medium tyre on lap 28 before taking a set of the soft tyres on lap 49.
Dave Robson, Head of Vehicle Performance: Today was another tricky day at the end of three weeks of racing. Our performance was better than on Friday, showing that we understood some of the issues we had and that we made some good improvements to the car ahead of qualifying. The tyres remained a little difficult, but it made for some interesting racing, with a variety of strategies attempted across the field.
We enjoyed racing with Haas and Alfa Romeo, and although we couldn't beat them today, we were much closer than we feared after Friday, which is an encouraging sign. We ran slightly different strategies on our two cars with Nicholas starting on the Medium and finishing with a short stint on the Soft. George ran the opposite tyre order, with a short middle stint on Medium as we looked to cover the cars that had pitted behind us. As ever, both drivers did well with the car that we were able to give them today, including some good overtakes from George.
Coming back to Barcelona at a different time of year has given us a good opportunity to evaluate the car performance in different conditions and has helped our understanding of the tyres at this circuit. We now have a short break before we embark on the third of the triple-headers, which begins at the iconic Spa circuit in two weeks' time.
Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton won in Spain from pole with a two-stop soft-medium-medium tyre strategy: the same as Red Bull's Max Verstappen in second at the end. However, Verstappen stopped a few laps before Hamilton on each occasion.
The other Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas finished third, also starting on the soft before moving onto the medium, but the Finn stopped twice again: for the soft tyre and then for the medium, making his third and final stop with two laps to go. He took the extra championship point for fastest lap.
While the majority of drivers completed two stops, some did just one: with Racing Point's Sergio Perez in fifth starting on soft and switching to medium, while Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel started on medium from P11 on the grid and then did an exceptionally long final stint on the soft to secure seventh.
McLaren's Carlos Sainz finished sixth with a soft-soft-medium strategy (the only driver to do so) while Red Bull's Alex Albon was eighth with another unique strategy: soft-hard-medium. Albon was the only driver to use the hard throughout the race.
As a result, there were seven different strategies seen in the top eight.
The overall race time in Barcelona was nearly 10 minutes faster than 2014: the first year of the hybrid turbo era. That translates into an average lap time that is more than eight seconds per lap faster: a rate of development that the tyres have been able to constantly keep pace with.
Mario Isola: "Managing the tyres in these demanding conditions with nearly 50 degrees of track temperatures was a big challenge, especially on the soft tyre. Nonetheless, we saw stints of more than 30 laps on them, which was extremely impressive, leading to some one-stop strategies that we didn't expect. In particular, Racing Point's Sergio Perez was fifth with soft-medium one-stopper, while Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel also stopped once with a brave strategy, going from medium to soft. Despite the hottest temperatures that many of the drivers have ever raced and a wide range of demands, the tyres stood up extremely well to the challenge."
