Spanish GP: Five quick takeaways

Piastri strikes back

After losing out on two consecutive weekends, Oscar Piastri responded like a true championship contender in Barcelona. It wasn’t a straightforward win, that’s for sure. On Saturday, the Australian recovered from a disappointing first lap in Q3 to steal pole from his teammate Lando Norris by over two-tenths. On Sunday, he delivered when it mattered.

Piastri got off to a strong start while Norris lost out to Verstappen, but then showed he had the pace to control the lead. The late Safety Car triggered by Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s retirement was the final test — and Piastri passed it.

This outcome cements Piastri’s position in the title fight at a crucial moment, as Formula 1 completes the first third of the season. With a couple of weeks to go until the Canadian Grand Prix, he’s given Norris something to think about.

– Federico Faturos

Verstappen’s title hopes are fading

McLaren’s advantage over the opposition remained pretty much unchanged, despite the new technical directive — but the reigning world champion has at least kept the race entertaining.

Once again sharp and aggressive on lap one, Verstappen made himself a factor in the fight for victory, and Red Bull strategists tried their best to create an opening for him to at least challenge the McLarens. It probably wouldn’t have worked with any other driver — as it required not losing any time overtaking others, and Verstappen was passing cars pretty much everywhere.

It still wasn’t enough. And probably wouldn’t have been even without the late safety car. McLaren simply has a better car — and even a driver of Verstappen’s calibre can’t fully compensate for that. For him to come back to the title fight, he’ll need help: either from Red Bull with car development, or from McLaren’s own drivers, who may start to fight each other more as the season goes on…

The silly incident with George Russell at the end, though, shows Verstappen is starting to lose his patience.

– Oleg Karpov

Front wing TD hasn’t changed much

“The balance is definitely not as nice as what we had before. But it hasn’t made any [difference]. What a waste of money. It’s just wasted everyone’s money.”

With those words, Lewis Hamilton summed up the issue of flexi wings — a topic many had hoped would be a turning point in the season and the battle at the front. But it hasn’t. To some extent, it has indeed been a waste of money for the teams that had to design and manufacture new wings just to comply with the updated rules.

That said, all teams had been aware of the directive for some time, giving them a chance to assess its impact and prepare accordingly, while also bringing upgrades. So there was time to plan everything in advance. Drivers have noticed a slight change in car balance, particularly through high-speed corners, where the cars now feel a bit more oversteery.

Still, set-up adjustments have largely mitigated those effects. It’s easy to see why the FIA felt the need to clamp down on wing flex, but the latest technical directive hasn’t shaken up the order — largely because flexible wings weren’t the silver bullets some had hoped for.

– Gianluca D’Alessandro

Tsunoda ‘not a pancake’, but second Red Bull seat remains a headache

“Yuki is not a pancake,” Max Verstappen told Dutch media after qualifying in Barcelona. “When he was at Racing Bulls, he always looked good compared to Hadjar.” The reigning world champion has a point — Tsunoda did look good compared to Hadjar. His recent struggles say more about the difficulty of that second Red Bull seat than about Tsunoda himself.

It’s a reality that’s starting to sink in for Tsunoda too. The Japanese driver began his Red Bull stint full of energy and even optimistic about keeping up with Verstappen, but his body language was completely different when he showed up in the pen on Saturday. Tsunoda had no explanation for his disastrous qualifying session and pointed to a “core limitation” of the Red Bull car, without elaborating on what that limitation is.

Yes, Tsunoda is still using the old floor and isn’t on the same spec as Verstappen — but that traces back to his own crash in Imola. He has no one else to blame for that.

Another driver change is certainly not the solution for Red Bull, but it underlines once again that the second seat remains a massive headache for the team. Will Tsunoda become another name on the list with Gasly, Albon, Perez and Lawson? It’s too early to say — but the trend is still very much there.

– Ronald Vording

Hamilton is still far from his best at Ferrari

Nine races have now passed, more than a third of the season, and Lewis Hamilton still hasn’t found the best version of himself at Ferrari. On Thursday, he clarified to the media that there’s nothing wrong in his relationship with race engineer Riccardo Adami following a rather awkward radio exchange they had during the Monaco race. But already on Friday, he was back complaining to Adami about the car — which even led Fred Vasseur to admit that it was slightly over the top.

“He was down, but the comments were a bit extreme on the radio today,” the Frenchman told Sky. “But he did also a strong last stint with the soft in the lap time of the first two. It means that the car was not so horrible than he said on the radio.”

For the second time in nine qualifyings, Hamilton was ahead of his team-mate on Saturday — although Leclerc admitted he had all but given up on qualifying, trying to save tyres for the race. On Sunday, Charles got off to a better start and then simply forced Ferrari to ask for a position swap with his pace. After that, Lewis didn’t have enough to keep up.

In the end, he finished more than 10 seconds behind, in sixth, while Leclerc was again Ferrari’s best-placed driver in third. With a 7-2 score in Leclerc’s favour in qualifying and 7-1 in races (which would’ve been 8-1, had both Ferrari drivers not been disqualified in China), it’s clearly Charles who remains Ferrari’s number one.

– Jose Carlos de Celis