F1 Paddock Notebook – Spanish GP Sunday

- Lewis Hamilton moved back into the lead of the Formula 1 drivers’ championship with victory in Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix, marking his third success of the season. Hamilton picked up his first fastest lap of the year to also score the additional bonus point, meaning he sits seven points clear of Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas in the standings.

- Hamilton led all 66 laps of Sunday’s race at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, winning on a two-stop strategy (Soft-Medium-Soft). Bottas spent all 66 laps running in second place.

- After the race, Hamilton dedicated his victory to a young, terminally ill fan who sent in a supportive video in the lead up to the weekend: “I was just super inspired by this young kid that sent me a message. He was kind of my spirit angel today.”  

- Bottas was left frustrated by a clutch issue at the start that caused him to lose ground to Hamilton, squandering pole position: “It was the first time I’ve felt anything like that, like a vibration in the clutch and that’s why the initial getaway was very poor. It was kind of biting and releasing in a very quick frequency. So it’s really annoying. All the hard work this weekend for me went down the depths.”

- Hamilton and Bottas were joined on the podium by Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche, who attended his final race today in the role at Mercedes’ parent company. Zetsche will step down at the end of the month, but will not attend the next race in Monaco.

- Mercedes honoured Zetsche by staging a team photo with everyone wearing fake moustaches similar to his own. The team ordered black moustaches before spray-painting them silver.

- Mercedes continued its streak of one-two finishes to start the season, meaning it has scored 217/220 points on offer this year (98.6 percent).

- Mercedes has now also scored more one-twos this year (5) than Ferrari has managed this decade (4).

- Max Verstappen picked up his second podium of the year as he beat both Ferrari drivers to P3. Verstappen passed Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc on the opening lap and remained ahead throughout the race. “I think my race was also decided on Lap 1, to overtake Seb around the outside in Turn 3,” Verstappen said. “I was trying to follow the Mercedes cars but they were clearly a bit too quick.”

- Ferrari defended its use of team orders to swap Vettel and Leclerc twice through the race, with team principal Mattia Binotto instead focusing on its losses compared to Mercedes. However, he said it was not a new issue: “The limitation we got today was present already in the first races of the season.”

- The slow pit stops for both Vettel (Lap 19) and Leclerc (Lap 25) were caused by a cross-threaded wheel nut on the left-rear wheel.

- Asked if they thought Mercedes could complete a perfect season and win all 21 races, both Vettel and Leclerc replied with one word: “No.”

- Pierre Gasly matched his best finish for Red Bull today in sixth, but suffered a drop-off in pace late in the first stint after catching some tyre marbles in his front wing.

- Haas finished as the leading midfield team with Kevin Magnussen in seventh, albeit after a wheel-to-wheel fight with Romain Grosjean who faded to P10 after running off-track in the battle. “I spoke to both drivers, I wanted to clear the air, we cleared the air and we are OK,” team boss Guenther Steiner said after the race. “We need to learn from this and move forward. We got away quite lucky.”

- Carlos Sainz continued his streak of always scoring points at his home grand prix as he finished eighth for McLaren. He scored the team’s only points after Lando Norris retired following a collision with Lance Stroll.

- The clash at Turn 2 on Lap 46 eliminated both drivers from the race, but the stewards took no action, saying neither driver was chiefly to blame for the clash.

- Daniil Kvyat took ninth for Toro Rosso, but was one of the few drivers to pull off some overtakes through the race. He had been on course to beat his best result for the team, only for a slow pit stop after the team failed to get its tyres ready to cost him a position to Grosjean. Kvyat has now finished ninth on six occasions for the team.

- Renault failed to score any points for the second race in a row as Daniel Ricciardo and Nico Hulkenberg finished 12th and 13th. Team boss Cyril Abiteboul said Renault is “not in line with the targets we have set ourselves”.

- Kimi Raikkonen failed to score points for the first time this season, finishing 14th after dropping to the rear of the field on the opening lap following an off-track excursion. The Finn said it was “not an easy weekend”.

- George Russell beat teammate Robert Kubica for the fifth straight weekend, finishing seven seconds clear. Both drivers were one lap down at the chequered flag.

- The main man of focus on the grid before the race was Brazilian footballer Neymar, who attended the race through links to Red Bull. Neymar is also good friends with Lewis Hamilton, but reportedly spilt some of his can of Red Bull onto the Briton’s spare helmet bag on the grid.