Hamilton’s intense battle with Vettel for victory

Outpaced at the start by Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton and his team took advantage of a more aggressive strategy to regain the upper hand over the Ferrari driver.

The Briton was therefore very pleased with this new hard-fought victory against his favorite rival: « It was a very good weekend and an excellent way to bounce back after Russia. It was the fiercest struggle I can remember in a long time. I loved it, that’s why I race. Having such a tight battle like that with a four-time world champion is great. I lost first place at the start and had to watch Sebastian take off. He was so fast up front, and it was so demanding to stay in touch with him and not let him get away! »

The tire strategy was at the heart of the race victory. Hamilton and his team made the right choices at the right time. And even though the Briton came out behind his rival after his last stop, he managed to regain the advantage: « I was able to manage my tires in the first stint and keep Vettel quite close, so it was difficult to continue on the Mediums and then, after the second stop, we came out very close to Vettel, which was great at turn number 1. He didn’t give me much space, it was close! I thought Seb would catch me at the end of the last stint, but I was able to hold him off. I must congratulate my team today, with the strategy and the pit stops, as well as the rest of the factory that worked so hard to deliver these upgrades, which allows us to lead this fight against Ferrari. » declared the Briton very happy with his success.

There's a whole lot more to come from these two…
Five races down, six points in it #F1 pic.twitter.com/EPibkpa4W0

— Formula 1 (@F1) 15 mai 2017

For Valtteri Bottas, the case was already clear on Friday evening with the replacement of his faulty power unit with an old one. Nevertheless, qualifying 3rd, the Finn was hoping for a podium, but his engine didn’t give him the opportunity: « It’s a difficult weekend. We had problems from the start during the trials when we had to swap my power unit with an old engine on Saturday morning. Then today, we had an engine failure during the race. We don’t know much beyond that at this stage. We knew it was a risk to go back to the older power unit in terms of mileage, but it was necessary if we wanted to qualify yesterday [Saturday]. At least we scored more points than Ferrari today [Sunday] despite my retirement. »

Involved in the collision at the first corner which cost the race for Max Verstappen and Kimi Räikkönen, Bottas acknowledges having hit his compatriot. But the race stewards deemed this action a simple racing incident: « The first corner was very tight. I had a good start, but there was nowhere to go. I tried to avoid the collision but I touched Kimi. »

Later in the race, Bottas, on an alternate strategy, tried to block Vettel to help his teammate catch up. This led to a tremendous overtake by the German on the Mercedes: « Lewis was on a different strategy while my first stint was longer. We tried to execute a one-stop strategy, which is why I was driving slower at that time. It could have been a rewarding strategy, but with the virtual safety car, the guys at the front got a free stop. »

What a move 😲#F1 #SpanishGP pic.twitter.com/3EDzJwion9

— Formula 1 (@F1) 14 mai 2017