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Lewis Hamilton cruised to an easy fourth win of the 2020 season Formula 1 Spanish Grand Prix, inching closer to a seventh World Championship title.
The Mercedes-AMG driver crossed the chequered flag 24.177 seconds ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and 44.752 seconds ahead of team mate Valterri Bottas, lapping all the other drivers at least once.
Hamilton said, after the race: “I’m in a daze. That was amazing out there and we got our strategy spot on. ”
Hamilton now holds the record for the most number of podium finishes in Formula 1 history, with 156 under his belt.
Mercedes-AMG started off with a 1-2 pole position and Bottas quickly lost his P2 to Verstappen, who then struggled for the rest of the race to catch up to Hamilton and stay ahead of Bottas.
Racing Point’s Lance Stroll kept pushing from behind and made it into P3 before being overtaken by Verstappen after a blisteringly-fast 1.9 second pit stop. Both of Racing Point’s drivers had a decent race, finishing 4-5 despite Sergio Perez being penalised for impeding Williams Mercedes’ George Russell at the start. The team, which is essentially driving last year’s Mercedes cars, are racing for the last time under the German marquee, partnering with Aston Martin for the 2021 season.
Verstappen had a feisty relationship with his pit team throughout the race, urging them to pit him early saying on the radio: “You want me to repeat it again? This (expletive) tyre is dead.”
After being urged to push and overtake Hamilton, he retorted: “How about we just focus on our race first instead of looking for Lewis? Clearly, on the soft tyre, we are not as fast as them. Make sure we do our job and let them do their job,” before being told: “Get your head down, Max, please.”
The top five drivers started with soft tyres, with Hamilton noting that he had studied the track and worked with the team to craft a smart tyre strategy, after struggling over the last two weekends.
Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel was the fan-favourite driver of the race, after racing hard to go from P11 to P7, while further back the line, his team mate Charles Leclerc retired early from the race after engine problems forced him off the track.
Hamilton now leads the drivers’ championship with 132 points, followed by Verstappen (95 points) and Bottas (89 points). Mercedes leads the constructor standings with 221 points, followed by Red Bull Racing Honda (135 points) and Racing Point BWT Mercedes (63 points).
The next race takes place on August 28 in Belgium.
