Following a “disastrous” week in Barcelona, Formula 1 driver Damon Hill has criticized for being “nowhere near” the standards expected at the 2024 Spanish Grand Prix.
Max Verstappen defeated Lando Norris on Sunday to win his seventh race of the year and his 61st in Formula One. The McLaren competitor lost the Spanish Grand Prix to the Red Bull driver by a mere 2.219 seconds. Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes finished third on the podium, 17.790 seconds behind.
In the Spanish Grand Prix, George Russell grabbed the lead at the beginning and continued to pose a threat to Norris and Verstappen. However, the Mercedes driver was unable to stay onto the lead and retreated to P4, managing to elude Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc until the finish line with a 0.389-second advantage.
Red Bull believes Sergio Perez’s performance at the Spanish Grand Prix was “disastrous.”
However, Sergio Perez disappointed once more while Verstappen continued to lead Red Bull and increase his lead in the drivers’ standings to 69 points. Due to his grid penalty, the 34-year-old began the Spanish Grand Prix from 11th place and barely finished in P8.
In order to offer Verstappen a slipstream during qualifying, Red Bull sacrificed Perez, and as a result, Verstappen lost out on pole position to Norris by 0.020s. The Milton Keynes team believed it would benefit them more if Perez supported Verstappen rather than attempting to improve on a subpar run in qualifying.
In addition, Perez received a three-place grid penalty from the Canadian Grand Prix after a crash, for which Red Bull advised him to keep driving a car in a hazardous manner. However, Hill feels that Perez’s eighth-place position in qualifying and P8 finish at the end of the Spanish Grand Prix is “disastrous” for Red Bull.
It’s tough to comprehend, isn’t it? Hill said to Sky Sports F1 (23/6, 16:03). Obviously, he’s got the best car in relation to McLaren, but he can’t beat Max.
That indicates that four or five grid spots should be located [between Perez and Verstappen]. If Red Bull wants to get him to score the most points possible or even assist Max in defense during races, it will be devastating. He’s far from proficient.
The third race in Sergio Perez’s unfortunate run came at the Spanish Grand Prix.
In the end, Perez’s troubles in the Monaco and Canadian Grand Prix led to his third consecutive poor performance in the Spanish GP. Over the last two rounds, he wrecked on his own in Montreal and clashed with Kevin Magnussen of Haas in Monte Carlo.
To exacerbate the situation and support Hill’s assertion that it is “disastrous” for Red Bull, Perez also failed to qualify for both the Canadian GP and the Monaco GP in the first round. Only the 18th quickest lap time in the Principality’s first qualifying round and the 16th best in Canada were recorded by the Guadalajara native.
Red Bull might find solace in Perez making it to the third round of the Spanish Grand Prix. However, he was unable to complete a flawless lap in qualifying, which put the Milton Keynes team in a position to request that the six-time Grand Prix winner give up his hopes for a better finish in order to assist Verstappen.
But with Perez pushing home in P8, he was never in a position to help Verstappen win the race. One Red Bull driver won the Spanish Grand Prix, although the other finished 59.524 seconds behind. In seventh place, Perez was likewise 25.764 seconds behind McLaren’s star driver, Oscar Piastri.
Given the situation Max Verstappen finds himself in as he attempts to become the fourth consecutive Formula One champion, Damon Hill has sent the Red Bull driver a “difficult” warning.
The 26-year-old has won back-to-back championships in Formula 1 in recent years thanks to his dominance. However, Verstappen is currently engaged in a crown-related duel, having essentially had it all his own way in the previous season. Mercedes, Ferrari, and McLaren have all demonstrated their ability to compete with Red Bull.
Red Bull came very close to having a flawless season last year, largely because to Verstappen’s victories in 19 of the 22 Grands Prix. A perfect record for the Milton Keynes squad was only thwarted by Carlos Sainz at the Singapore Grand Prix. However, Red Bull has already lost races to Ferrari and McLaren in 2024.
Damon Hill cautions Max Verstappen that his opponents will make the 2024 championship match “tough.”
Verstappen maintains his position as the standard bearer in 2024 after securing a significant lead by dominating the opening rounds. In addition to winning the F1 Sprint at the Chinese GP, the Dutchman started his season with four victories in the first five races. He has also won seven of the first ten races on pole position.
However, Hill feels Verstappen is in a “difficult” position to defend his title in 2024 because of the presence of Lando Norris at McLaren, Charles Leclerc at Ferrari, and the Mercedes combination. It will be even more difficult once his opponents begin to deny the Dutchman points.
“Anything that takes away from Max just piling on more points is going to make it more difficult to win the championship,” Hill said to Sky Sports F1 (23/6, 13:00). He must be able to hold onto that respectably large points advantage.
However, your advantage in points will vanish the instant you start losing and placing third and fourth. And he’s currently in a situation where someone is threatening to deny him the most points possible.
The 2024 championship match will put Max Verstappen to the test in a wheel-to-wheel combat.
It will also be a test of the driver Verstappen has developed into while he has dominated Formula One to have a real fight for victory most weekends. Throughout the 2021 campaign, as he competed for the Dutchman’s maiden championship, he kept in regular communication with Lewis Hamilton. Still, he hasn’t faced a significant obstacle since.
Even at the 2023 Las Vegas Grand Prix, Verstappen did not demonstrate that he had moved on from his incidents with Hamilton in 2021 when Leclerc got his Ferrari to pole. He did the same with Leclerc as he did at the Emilia Romagna GP and the Spanish GP in 2021.
Verstappen received a five-second time penalty from the stewards for shoving Leclerc off the track during the Las Vegas Grand Prix. He just drove the two away since he wouldn’t accept second place in Sin City. More opponents in the mix will now put Verstappen’s skills as a wheel-to-wheel combatant to the test.
Oscar Piastri expressed dissatisfaction with his McLaren’s performance at the Spanish Grand Prix, saying he was “not comfortable” in the vehicle the entire weekend.
The Australian failed to establish a lap time because of track restrictions violations and a mistake at Turn 12 during his final attempt in Q3, and he only qualified 10th on the grid—his poorest qualifying session of the year.
Despite sharing the identical car specifications as Norris, Piastri hasn’t had the speed to contend with his colleague, who outqualified Max Verstappen to take pole position by 0.020 seconds.
Despite finishing ahead of Sergio Perez and both Alpines, he managed to climb up to seventh place in the Grand Prix but was unable to cut the gap on the Ferraris driven by Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc. He was finishing the race one second behind Norris, who was pursuing Verstappen for the victory.
Oscar Piastri laments his subpar McLaren performance
For the seventh time this season, in qualifying, and for the eighth time in a race, Norris defeated Piastri. Speaking to F1.com, he seemed to be at a loss for explanations for why he was so far below his teammate’s pace.
“I’ve had a difficult weekend and haven’t felt comfortable in the automobile. Before qualifying, it was a little difficult, but on Friday, things were looking more promising, Piastri added.
“During qualifying, it looked a little better at times, but for some reason, I struggled a lot.”
Oscar Piastri against Lando Norris: Can they match?
Since the beginning of the season, Piastri has frequently been unclear about the underlying reason for his problems.
Norris, who has made two attempts to win races since the Emilia Romagna GP, has benefited more than McLaren, who has added more enhancements to the MCL38.
Compared to last year, Piastri has improved his tyre management. Before getting into trouble with Carlos Sainz, he drove as well as Norris at the Miami Grand Prix.
Later, he performed admirably at the Monaco Grand Prix, in large part because of the early red light that allowed drivers to swap out their tires.
However, he doesn’t seem to have the same level of consistency as Norris, who is beginning to demonstrate that he could challenge defending champion Verstappen for the championship. During the Spanish Grand Prix, Jolyon Palmer noticed something “interesting” about his troubles.
Piastri has committed to a long-term partnership with McLaren, which will keep him racing with the team until the end of 2026.
George Russell thinks Mercedes is back in the hunt to challenge Ferrari, McLaren, and Red Bull after their strong showing in the Spanish Grand Prix qualifying round.
Following their major front wing updates on both cars at the previous round in Canada, Mercedes has introduced a little tweak to their floor at the Circuit de Barcelona Catalunya.
Since launching it, the team has approached Red Bull and McLaren and posed a challenge to consistent front-runner Ferrari.
Speaking to F1.com, Russell expressed his belief that the Silver Arrows’ performance in qualifying is evidence that they are back on the correct track, igniting talk that the team might be vying for the championship.
George Russell anticipates Mercedes’s current pace to hold
James Allison, the technical director of Mercedes, moderated expectations following the Canadian Grand Prix, but it seems their form has continued at one of the toughest circuits on the schedule.
Hamilton’s P3 lap was still three tenths slower than the fastest times set by Verstappen and Norris. Russell anticipates that they will keep improving, albeit acknowledging that they were behind McLaren by a little more than they had anticipated.
We’ve demonstrated that in three consecutive races, according to Russell. “Canada obviously had a pole position, but Monaco was 20 milliseconds from P3, which would have been a podium. I believe the difference was a little bit wider than we had anticipated.
“I think Lando performed a great job, and I think the race will be close. As a team, [beginning] P3 and P4 is the finest outcome possible.
Is George Russell prone to too many accidents?
For the second time this year, Russell was outqualified by Lewis Hamilton, and he was incensed by his teammate’s preparation lap on the last lap of qualifying.
Russell’s record is matched only by two other drivers: Verstappen over Sergio Perez and Alex Albon over teammate Logan Sargeant for Williams.
Despite the fact that Russell has outperformed the seven-time world champion in the driver’s seat, Damon Hill believes Russell is still “desperate” after blowing a chance to win in Montreal.
Toto Wolff, the team principal, added that Hamilton fell behind him because his late move on Oscar Piastri was “never on.” In the Australian Grand Prix, Russell was also involved in a last-lap collision while pursuing Fernando Alonso.
During Sunday’s 2024 Spanish Grand Prix, Jolyon Palmer acknowledged that Lando Norris and George Russell performed something the BBC pundit “never thought” he would see.
On Sunday, the McLaren and Mercedes duo gave a fantastic display at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. For the second time in his Formula 1 career, Norris began the Spanish Grand Prix from pole position. However, the 24-year-old had to make do with second place, trailing Max Verstappen.
In Montmelo, Norris lost the race due to a subpar start, allowing Verstappen to pass the British driver off the grid. However, Russell surged from fourth position into the lead with a help from the McLaren and Red Bull team. However, Verstappen would not give up the lead to the 26-year-old until the third lap.
Jolyon Palmer “never” anticipated a Spanish Grand Prix matchup akin to that of Lando Norris and George Russell.
Following Norris’s time loss in the first phase due to being delayed behind Russell, McLaren changed their plan to his advantage. The Bristol-born driver barely gained the position as Mercedes boxed Russell; it took him until lap 16 to pass his countryman. Their fight was just put on hold by the pit stop.
After his first pit stop, Norris returned to the course in P5, making good use of his off-set tyre life. However, the McLaren ace ultimately fell behind Russell, a native of Lynn, and it required an intense battle for Norris to overtake the Mercedes driver and take second place.
Palmer was astonished when Norris and Russell engaged in a seven-corner race around the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, which the former eventually won. The two British drivers dominated lap 35 of the Spanish Grand Prix from Turn 1 to Turn 7, spending the majority of the battle driving side by side.
Palmer stated on BBC Radio 5 Live that there are seven different racing tracks in Barcelona. That’s hardly the kind of battle I expected to witness in Barcelona. That was excellent material from Norris, Russell, and Norris once more.
In Barcelona, George Russell and Lando Norris put up a side-by-side spectacular.
When Norris, the Mercedes racer, claimed the inside line for T4, Russell would have thought he had the race covered. However, his McLaren competitor did not give up and skillfully leveraged the overlap to hold onto the place. Russell, however, continued to refuse to let up and circled around Norris outside at T4.
Russell had the inside line for Turn 5 after taking the outside of Turn 4, and the Mercedes ace would have anticipated to be in the lead again. However, he took a tighter line and raced a little bit deeper, allowing Norris the switch-back and the position as Russell was forced to retreat.
Russell would have overtaken Norris again if Turn 7 hadn’t been a strong left-hander on the uphill climb. Rather, it was the conclusion of a battle that stunned Palmer and put the McLaren driver in position two for the Spanish Grand Prix, while Russell dropped to position four.
Williams master During the 2024 Spanish Grand Prix, Alex Albon became enraged with his race engineer James Urwin after he gave him a frustrating five-word response over the team radio.
For the Grove team on Sunday, the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya proved to be a frustrating hunting ground. Albon crossed the finish line in P18 for Williams, while Logan Sargeant ended in last place for the Spanish Grand Prix. At the back, Yuki Tsunoda from Visa Cash App RB joined the two.
Williams chose to start the 28-year-old from the pit lane, which made it difficult for Albon to advance through the Spanish Grand Prix. The crew also had a challenging day at work on qualifying. Both Sargeant and Albon conceded in the first quarter and by locking out the last row of the grid.
James Urwin’s abrupt radio statement during the Spanish Grand Prix annoyed Alex Albon.
In violation of parc fermé rules, Williams chose to use Albon’s qualifying P19 for the Spanish Grand Prix in order to install his third battery and electronics control unit. A three-place grid penalty for obstructing Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll during qualifying was rendered meaningless by Sargeant’s P20 qualifying effort.
Albon, though, continued to push throughout Sunday’s race, while Williams was always near the back of the pack. However, in his attempt to keep a distance ahead of Tsunoda, the Thai driver born in London lost control at Turn 4. As he entered the corner, he experienced an odd oversteer.