It was a return to the old days for Mercedes at the 2018 Spanish Grand Prix as they produced a 1-2 snoozer that they used to get with regularity two years ago. It was an all-out snoozer for race winner Lewis Hamilton as the pole-sitter but slightly more difficult for his second place teammate, Valtteri Bottas, who had to fend off challenges from Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.
While Hamilton was gifted a win in the last race in Baku, this time was no gift as he drove off from the rest of the field with ease and was never challenged in the race. Vettel began in third and overtook Bottas for second place at the first turn and held that position for the first 17 laps before pitting to change tires in an attempt to make some headway into Hamilton’s massive lead. Eight laps later, his Ferrari teammate, Raikkonen, was out of the race with an engine failure and Vettel tried to take advantage of a virtual safety car with a second pit stop and a fresh set of tires but that tactic backfired when a slow pit stop put him behind Verstappen, who then held Vettel off for the remainder of the race to grab the third and final podium position.
With the victory, Hamilton extends his lead in the 2018 Formula One driver’s standings to 17 points with 95 points to Vettel’s 78 points with Bottas in third with 58 points.
The 2018 Spanish Grand Prix Top 10
1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes
2 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes
3 Max Verstappen Red Bull
4 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari
5 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull
6 Kevin Magnussen Haas
7 Carlos Sainz Jr. Renault
8 Fernando Alonso McLaren
9 Sergio Pérez Force India
10 Charles Leclerc Sauber