Max Verstappen has become the youngest ever Formula One race winner as he has taken a surprise victory in the Spanish Grand Prix. His win was gifted to him as the two Mercedes drivers tangled in the first few laps, forcing them both to retire from the race. Daniel Ricciardo had led most of the race but different strategies between the two Red Bull drivers saw Ricciardo fall behind the two Ferrari drivers and off the podium. It was a race of strategies that saw Verstappen take the win from Ferrari’s Kimi Räikkönen and Sebastian Vettel.
An unpredictable start to the race saw the Mercedes duo both into the gravel at turn three. Nico Rosberg got the jump on Lewis Hamilton off the start, leading the Brit into Turn 1. He looked to have the better get away. But Hamilton was not ready to conceit the lead. Down through Turn 2 and into Turn 3, Hamilton grabbed the tow off his teammate and try to go up the inside to retake the position. But Rosberg blocked him off, squeezing the Brit off of the track. Hamilton lost control of the car and collected Rosberg’s rear wing as he spun into the gravel on the outside of Turn 3. The two retired on the spot leaving the race wide open for the chasing pack now with the win a complete possibility. The safety car was brought out to clear up the debris.
The race was lead by Red Bull from the start to the finish, but it was Ricciardo who led his new teammate for the majority. A split strategy saw the Dutchman get the upper hand on his teammate and take the win as Ricciardo pitted for a third time whilst Verstappen stayed out to make his medium compound tyres last 32 laps. Ricciardo had been chasing down Vettel for the last step on the podium when just two laps from the end he encountered a rear puncture that saw him dive into the pits for a fresh set of rubber. Luckily for Ricciardo the gap to Valtteri Bottas in fifth was large enough for him to be able to pit and get back out into fourth.
It was a fantastic finish for Carlos Sainz Jr who ended his home race in sixth. After the Mercedes tangle at the beginning of the race Sainz found himself up in third position on the restart but his 2015 Ferrari engine was no match for the two chasing 2016 Ferrari engines behind. They demoted him within five laps of the restart to fifth but Sainz had a trouble-free race to hold onto sixth as the chequered flag dropped.
Nico Hulkenberg was looking to improve on his eleventh-place starting position but the bad luck that had been tormenting his season thus far was still around. Just after the first round of pit stops the German’s car caught on fire at the rear. He radioed to the team mentioning the smoke and was instructed to pull over by a fire marshal. What looked to be an engine failure brought Hulkenberg’s race to a premature end. This would not have been what Force India were hoping for as they try and close the gap to McLaren in the Constructor’s Championship. However Sergio Perez had a much better race, finished 18 seconds off of Sainz for P7.
After an impressive performance in the Russian Grand Prix McLaren’s Spanish Grand Prix did not have the ending that home driver Fernando Alonso would have wanted. After a strong run of reliability the woes of 2015 can back to the team as twenty laps before the end of the race Alonso pulled the car to the side of the track at Turn 3. He stopped due to the power in his Honda engine cutting out. Jenson Button managed to climb from twelfth to ninth to bring McLaren home two points for this race.
Felipe Massa also had an amazing recovery race as he moved from P18 to P8 to bring points home for Williams along with Bottas. He used a three-stop strategy and the competitive pace of his Williams over the midfield runners to promote himself up the grid.
In his first race racing back for Toro Rosso, Daniil Kvyat rounded off the top ten, taking one point back to his new team. The Russian driver had a battle with Ricciardo and Vettel towards the end of the race but it will never be known how Kvyat could have performed with the same chance and the same situation as Verstappen was, but the question will remain as to whether he could have achieved what Verstappen did.
Romain Grosjean was the only other retiree of the race. The Renault duo tried a different strategy by putting both of their drivers onto the hard compound of tyre from the second stop but it did not pay off. Kevin Magnussen pitted again for soft tyres towards the end of the race but was still beaten by teammate Jolyon Palmer for thirteenth.
Kvyat knocked Esteban Gutierrez out of his first point scoring position of the season in the closing stages of the race, leaving the Mexican to finish eleventh. He was followed over the line by Marcus Ericsson, Palmer, Magnussen, Felipe Nasr, Pascal Wehrlein and Rio Haryanto.
