Lewis Hamilton showed his authority again at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. If there was any doubt, the leader of the overall standings has clearly shown himself as the favourite to clinch the victory at the FORMULA 1 ARAMCO GRAN PREMIO DE ESPAÑA 2020.
Impeccably. This is how Lewis Hamilton performed today, not leaving any option at all to his rivals. The Mercedes driver stopped the clock at 1:15.584, being one of the few to see the fifteen seconds mark in his time, together with Bottas. This has been his 92nd fastest lap, thus becoming the driver with the most number of pole positions in the history of Formula 1. Team-mate Valtteri Bottas, was not far behind. The Finnish driver will join his team-mate tomorrow on the front row of the grid.
Max Verstappen (Red Bull) and Checo Pérez (Racing Point) will be right behind them. Many expected Verstappen to be among the top, as he has been the only driver able to become a real threat for the black arrows. Moreover, he just took a victory in Silverstone, and the memory of his first victory in Barcelona will surely give him an extra boost. Checo Pérez must be very happy, as he was able to show that he is still in full shape after his absence from the last two races.
Checo Pérez has made evident, just as Lance Stroll, that Racing Point has potential enough to fight for the podium and to tackle Red Bull. In fact, Lance Stroll qualified fifth, one tenth behind his team-mate and the last driver within the one minute and sixteen seconds mark.
Alexander Albon (Red Bull) took the sixth position from Carlos Sainz (McLaren) by only two hundredths of a second. However, it was an excellent qualifying session for the Spaniard, who has options to make a great performance at his home race. Team-mate Lando Norris follows him in the qualifying results for the Spanish Grand Prix.
Poor performance by Ferrari. Charles Leclerc finished ninth and Sebastian Vettel did not make it to Q3 having to settle for eleventh. In between the red single-seaters, Pierre Gasly (Alpha Tauri). Renault is in a similar situation. Despite their good performance during yesterday’s practices, they deflated today and neither Daniel Ricciardo nor Esteban Ocon were able to make it past Q2. Haas and Williams share the last position of the sheets.
Despite Mercedes’ dominance, the differences between drivers have been rather small, considering that they are putting themselves to the test on a track that they know perfectly well, as they already were here to carry out their pre-season testing. We will have to see if the most conservative predictions are confirmed tomorrow or if fans will be able to enjoy on their screens a race filled with surprises. It is clear that the 50 ºC will put both drivers as well as cars and teams to the test.
Heart-stopping finish in F2 and excellent recovery of Matsushita
The fact that the safety car had to be deployed twice during the final stages, turned the Formula 2 race into a true battle. To be precise, it needed a last sprinted lap to eventually crown Nobuharu Matsushita (MP Motorsport). The Japanese driver did not only take his first victory but recovered 17 positions. Robert Shwartzman (Prema Racing) and Guanyu Zhou (UNI-Virtuosi) joined him on the podium.
On the other hand, monumental anger for Callum Illot. The UNI-Virtuosi driver started from pole and seemed to have the race under control until the first stop, but the safety car deployments overthrew the course of things. Eventually, Illot had to settle for the fifth final position.
Jake Hughes clinches his first F3 victory of the year
Jake Hughes (HWA RACELAB) showed the best performance today and took his first victory of the year. He made a masterful manoeuvre overtaking poleman Logan Sargeant (PREMA Racing), who finished third after being overtaken by Liam Lawson (Hitech Grand Prix) as well.
Oscar Piastri, who arrived in Barcelona in the lead of the standings, lost a large part of his options after making several mistakes. Despite starting from fourth, he eventually finished sixth.
Spanish team Campos Racing achieved their best result with Alexander Peroni on eighth. The Spanish-Venezuelan driver Sebastián Fernández did not score any points today.
Larry ten Voorde, Posche Mobil 1 Supercup poleman
The Dutch driver of Team GP Elite will start tomorrow’s only race of the single-make series at the Circuit from pole, after clocking the fastest time with 1:48,194 min. He will be joined on the front row by Jaxon Evans (BTW Lechner Racing), followed by Florian Latorre (CLRT) and Max Van Splunteren (Team GP Elite).
