2021 Spanish Grand Prix - Catalunya, May 07 - 09

[maxxer]

Underrated comment

Seems Bottas always fades away halfway during a race. Look at Lewis his closing speed on the fresh mediums Bottas only put in one fastest lap on his softs he should have closed the gap to Max at least to 20s he gave them the free pitstop all by himself by not racing enough

To add last race he only got it because of those track limits that Max lost it

He, like the second red bull driver whoever they may be, is just unable to put in those lap times that Hamilton and Verstappen are able to do. Their relative race pace is just on another level to their team mates.

True , if he had closed the gap to 23 - 24 seconds Verstappen would have been at risk to pit and then at the end easy to take him on those worn out mediums

[foxmulder_ms]

What a masterclass by Lewis...had it not been for Imola he would have passed Verstapen 4 times on track with similar machinery!!

Lewis's 2021 performances already show the haters how good he really is! Of course this is backed up by a brilliant team taking the right strategic calls...but I really can't see anyone else from the current or the past grid being able to execute this strategy time and time again, specially with today's difficult to overtake cars and at these kind of circuits (Spain, Hungary).

Today's race was epic and this year is just what every F1 fan had been waiting for, for a long time now! Two truly great drivers in similar cars going head to head at every single race! Let's enjoy this season!!

You are British, right?

HAHAHA, dude you so do not know Hamilton fans. News for you, many are not even from Europe. Hamilton is liked despite being British by many lol

[mafeotul]

Think we’re definitely getting off track here.

To get it back to business, why oh why did RedBull not respond after the stop from Hamilton. They might have had a better chance that way. I am sure they had a window, even if minute. How are they expecting to win titles against serial winners if they don’t go for a bit of risk and madness sometimes.

[Hoffman900]

Think we’re definitely getting off track here.

To get it back to business, why oh why did RedBull not respond after the stop from Hamilton. They might have had a better chance that way. I am sure they had a window, even if minute. How are they expecting to win titles against serial winners if they don’t go for a bit of risk and madness sometimes.

Max said in the post race, they just didn’t have the pace, so it would have been easier to defend from the front on a track like that.

Basically he said he knew he was going to be 2nd one way or another as soon as Lewis ducked in.

Max is a but too much of a cyborg for me to be a diehard fan, but he interviews great. Very candid, doesn’t get into the political game or give the media sound bites / play into their games.

[Bill_Kar]

It's the first time he raced for ages...

Underrated comment

Seems Bottas always fades away halfway during a race. Look at Lewis his closing speed on the fresh mediums Bottas only put in one fastest lap on his softs he should have closed the gap to Max at least to 20s he gave them the free pitstop all by himself by not racing enough

To add last race he only got it because of those track limits that Max lost it

My belief is Bottas is a strong quali driver, no doubt, but whether he tends to set his car up for Saturday or he is not that good on Sundays in general, he is 90% of the time subpar in the race. His racecraft is mediocre, his tyre management as well, not that good at overtaking.

Look at today, in what was a faster (slightly or not) car he actually lost a lot of time to Verstappen after Pitstop 1, on similar tyres.

Does he do a better job than Perez? Of course. But most of the times he isn't there to help Hamilton directly, he still hasn't finished ahead of Verstappen. He is just some seconds behind just to annoy a free pit stop. Granted, better than nothing, but is this really the baseline? I think not, when championship is that close.

[mafeotul]

Think we’re definitely getting off track here.

To get it back to business, why oh why did RedBull not respond after the stop from Hamilton. They might have had a better chance that way. I am sure they had a window, even if minute. How are they expecting to win titles against serial winners if they don’t go for a bit of risk and madness sometimes.

Max said in the post race, they just didn’t have the pace, so it would have been easier to defend from the front on a track like that.

Basically he said he knew he was going to be 2nd one way or another as soon as Lewis ducked in.

Max is a but too much of a cyborg for me to be a diehard fan, but he interviews great. Very candid, doesn’t get into the political game or give the media sound bites / play into their games.

Aye, race was done once i saw Hamilton on 1,9 seconds faster on the same tyre, with about 4 laps difference. I mean, 1,9 race pace difference is a joke.

However, you have to defend, you have to respond, and by pro-active not reactive. No winners in the world have won on reacting. Take charge for the love of god. You know what’s even worse. Mercedes hasn't upgraded their car yet. And they still swung this around.

[cheeRS]

Verstappen made another mistake, albeit a small one. But you don’t win a WDC by making mistakes over and over.

He came in too early, without being called it. This delayed his pits too by around 2 seconds.

And the idea that they could stay out and not cover off Merc’s undercut was just utterly naive - although that was the team’s fault and not Max’s directly.

[restless]

his tyres started degrading, he lost 1sec in last lap before pitting.

[zibby43]

'They just had the quicker car'
Red Bull team boss Christian Horner, speaking to Sky Sports: "I don't think we could [have done anything differently]. In fairness, hats off to Mercedes and Lewis.

"They were just quicker than we were today. We were surprised they didn't go for the early undercut. [At the end] We knew he was probably going to catch us.

"They just looked like they had a quicker car today. They were able to follow so closely. They had nothing to lose when taking that pit stop into the clean air."

When you’re the only team running a spoon wing it does beg the question about how they set the car up. They had a torrid Fri, I think they panicked a bit and set up their car for quali & this is the result; poorer pace & deg on Sun.

Idiot here, what are the benefits and drawbacks of using the spoon wing. Especially in terms of how this would have been good for quali but bad for the race.

The spoon RW is a lower downforce option. RB improved their top speed a bit by bolting it on. Doing so also sacrifices a bit of inefficient rear downforce.

I don’t think it cost them anything in the race, though. The benefit of more speed on the straights would’ve carried over from qualifying, and the deg. seemed fine.

[DChemTech]

Some still seem to claim RB and Merc are more or less equal. If that were the case, either Perez is an absolute fool, or Bottas is doing a stellar job. Now, while I did expect more of Perez, I don't think he's that bad... and the general attitude towards Bottas does not seem to be one of stellar driving. In Bahrain, the cars were even or perhaps RB had a slight overhand. But since, the race-pace seems to be in favor of Mercedes. Had Hamilton not beached in Imola, he'd possibly have 4/4 races so far. Had Bottas not had the fuel sensor issue last week, he might have caught Verstappen. And this week, the pace was favoring Hamilton, too. Once he was past Max, it was a done deal. Sure, Max might have made it a bit harder if he had not had the miscommunication with the pitlane - but even with a perfect stop, it would not be enough (nor would pitting a few laps later help, as Hamilton would have taken an undercut, then).

As for the individual performance of Max vs. Lewis, I don't think there is really that clear a conclusion (as some do seem to imply). Both are driving brilliantly. Max takes a bit more risk (possibly to compensate for the seemingly somewhat lesser car), and conversely, makes a bit more errors due to that (which seems to be a side effect of taking more risk). Together they are making quite the show, and that's great. But I do hope RB find a bit more race pace in the car - otherwise every individual race might have its tense moments, but the championship may not.

[Just_a_fan]

He wasn't racing Lewis, and if they intended on racing Bottas, they wouldn't have bothered pitting. So either way "I'm here to race" is BS

If he was there to race why was he driving around like Miss Daisy on his new set of tyres instead of pushing on and stopping Max taking the fastest lap from him?

Bottas should have defended much harder to see if he could secure the valuable maximum WDC points for his WDC attempt.

If he had defended harder, the outcome would have been nil points for either of them.

[Midi]

What a masterclass by Lewis...had it not been for Imola he would have passed Verstapen 4 times on track with similar machinery!!

Verstappen has passed Lewis in every single race this year. Only one time with DRS aid (and outside track limits).

Hell Rosberg did not pass Hamilton 4 times on track in the whole of 2016!

[TNTHead]

Some still seem to claim RB and Merc are more or less equal. If that were the case, either Perez is an absolute fool, or Bottas is doing a stellar job. Now, while I did expect more of Perez, I don't think he's that bad... and the general attitude towards Bottas does not seem to be one of stellar driving. In Bahrain, the cars were even or perhaps RB had a slight overhand. But since, the race-pace seems to be in favor of Mercedes. Had Hamilton not beached in Imola, he'd possibly have 4/4 races so far. Had Bottas not had the fuel sensor issue last week, he might have caught Verstappen. And this week, the pace was favoring Hamilton, too. Once he was past Max, it was a done deal. Sure, Max might have made it a bit harder if he had not had the miscommunication with the pitlane - but even with a perfect stop, it would not be enough (nor would pitting a few laps later help, as Hamilton would have taken an undercut, then).

As for the individual performance of Max vs. Lewis, I don't think there is really that clear a conclusion (as some do seem to imply). Both are driving brilliantly. Max takes a bit more risk (possibly to compensate for the seemingly somewhat lesser car), and conversely, makes a bit more errors due to that (which seems to be a side effect of taking more risk). Together they are making quite the show, and that's great. But I do hope RB find a bit more race pace in the car - otherwise every individual race might have its tense moments, but the championship may not.

Well said. After the last few races it is quite clear that the Mercs have the upper hand pace wise.

And RB is still waiting for Perez to deliver and be of help strategy wise. If Perez would have been in front of BOT and behind HAM the second pit stip of HAM could have not played out this way.

[Just_a_fan]

What a masterclass by Lewis...had it not been for Imola he would have passed Verstapen 4 times on track with similar machinery!!

Verstappen has passed Lewis in every single race this year. Only one time with DRS aid (and outside track limits).

Hell Rosberg did not pass Hamilton 4 times on track in the whole of 2016!

Max and Lewis are the class of the field. It's Fernando and Michael again. This time, instead of the the tyres being changed, the aero rules have been changed. Same result - the top two in the sport are fighting every race. Admittedly, Mercedes are able to do more than Ferrari were in 2005, but that's merely a detail. Great to see a proper tussle at the front.

[Wouter]

Verstappen made another mistake, albeit a small one. But you don’t win a WDC by making mistakes over and over.

He came in too early, without being called it. This delayed his pits too by around 2 seconds.

Teamradio:

Max : We will discuss after the race what went wrong
Gianpiero Lambiase (race-engineer): Yes I know what happend
Max: Yes it is ok

Max fault? It seems it wasn't his fault.