Was it the race that killed the 2020 F1 championship?

The Spanish Grand Prix seemed like a real fight between Mercedes and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, but it turned into another routine victory for Lewis Hamilton.

What happened to the Red Bull challenge?

“Bring some heat!” That was Toto Wolff’s message to rival team boss Christian Horner when they met on the podium after the Spanish Grand Prix.

Above them, Lewis Hamilton took the top step, fresh off a crushing 24-second victory over Max Verstappen in the intense heat of the Spanish summer. Less than 24 hours earlier, Wolff had told reporters he was confident the warm conditions would play into Red Bull’s hands over a race distance. Red Bull had looked faster than Mercedes on heavy fuel on Friday and it matched the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix narrative that the W11 had genuine weakness in the heat.

But with 16 laps into the race, it was clear that Verstappen’s pace was not up to Hamilton’s. The lead Mercedes continued to pull away as Verstappen grew increasingly concerned with Valtteri Bottas’ second Mercedes in his mirrors and the condition of his Red Bull tires. Halfway through the race, Verstappen had to remind his pit wall to focus on his race rather than Hamilton’s, extinguishing any hope of a fight in the final third of the race.

In truth, Mercedes was sailing. Something that became clear on lap 63 when both Mercedes cars overtook two seconds faster than Verstappen as they fought for the fastest point. Credit goes to Red Bull for separating the two Mercedes with an inferior car, but this highlighted the performance chasm between Hamilton and Bottas this year. In qualifying, the margin was only 0.049 seconds between Mercedes teammates, but in the race, as has often been the case this year, Hamilton was in a different class.

The result means Hamilton extended his championship lead to 37 points over Verstappen and 43 points over Bottas. After just six races, these numbers are huge and everything indicates that they will increase over the next few weeks. Hopes for a Red Bull championship challenge depended on replicating the conditions of the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix over enough races to allow Verstappen to catch up. But it seems increasingly likely that this hot summer day at Silverstone is simply an anomaly in an otherwise dominant season for the reigning world champions.

Vettel frustrated, but back in the points

It was a welcome return to points for Sebastian Vettel, who managed to finish seventh on the back of a very well-managed one-stop-shop strategy. He ran 36 laps on the soft tire and was able to go to the flag while most of his midfield rivals followed the more conventional two-stop strategy Pirelli had suggested as the fastest before the race.

But during the race, we got a more revealing glimpse of how Vettel’s relationship with Ferrari has changed.

Having initially been ordered to push on those soft tires, an instruction usually given before a call to the pits for new tires, Ferrari then told him that he was considering going to the end of the race with these tires – this This strategy obviously requires that a driver be looking after his tires, not burning them.

Vettel’s response on the radio was: “Ah, damn! I already asked you that!”

While it could be stored in the vault of curious Ferrari strategy calls, thankfully the conflicting messages didn’t seem to have too much of an impact on the end result.

Explaining his frustration, Vettel said: “It’s pretty simple, we had nothing to lose. We were P11 and were trying to compensate until the end of the race.

“We were catching the cars in front and then they clashed for their second stop, but I was in no rush to catch them, manage my tires, and then I was told to push. Which I did, then was asked if I could make it to the end, I said “ well you could have asked for that a few laps before ” because I had repeatedly asked what was the goal and how long we want to go, so I can take care of my tires. I said we will try to be successful. “

Vettel also admitted he still has some work to do before he fully understands his recent fights with the Ferrari, saying his first run was still a struggle. Of course, it was only seventh, but given how uncomfortable it was to watch a great all-time fight like Vettel did over two racing weekends at Silverstone, so does that Vettel’s end result was positive is an encouraging sign.

Raikkonen the record holder

Much has been said about the Michael Schumacher records Lewis Hamilton is getting closer to, but Kimi Raikkonen won a place in the history books in a different category this afternoon. No driver has completed more laps in F1 than the Finn – after completing lap 37, Kimi Raikkonen had a record 83,846 kilometers in F1. It is more than two turns of earth.

Of course, Raikkonen has repeatedly pointed out how little he cares about these kinds of records, but he will receive more similar questions in future races. He is now three races away from Rubens Barichello’s record of 322 starts.