Lewis Hamilton has won the Spanish Grand Prix after defeating the arch rival Sebastian Vettel. With this memorable victory, Lewis Hamilton has narrowed down his driver’s championship deficit to the German driver to just six points.
Heading into the first corner, it was Sebastian Vettel who was leading the race starting from second position. At almost exactly at the same time, Kim Raikkonen and Max Verstappen had to crash out after the Iceman was clipped by Valtteri Bottas, heading into The Flying Dutchman.
Had the Mercedes team not pressurised Sebastian Vettel into pitting early, the German, who had already opened a 2+ second gap to Hamilton may have continued to race away to victory. However, they did and Vettel had to concede the lead to the Brit on lap 15. Earlier, Hamilton had started from the pole position.
When Hamilton had to pit six laps later, his teammate, Bottas, meanwhile, was giving tough time to Vettel. In fact, Bottas, the winner of the Russian Grand Prix, was the main reason Hamilton could sneak upto Vettel, adamantly fighting for his position against Vettel, slowing him considerably in the process.
As fate would intervene, an incident between Stoffel Vandoorne and Felipe Maasa resulted in the deployment of a virtual safety car between them. Meanwhile, Both Vettel and Hamilton managed to pass Bottas. The incident also resulted in the Mercedes team taking a free pitstop for Hamilton where he was changed with new soft compound tires.
Now comes the thrilling part. Three laps later, Vettel, after exiting the pits side by side with Hamilton, made contact with the Brit in the middle of turn 1, pushing Hamilton out in the process. Vettel managed to keep the lead for around six laps, but a determined Hamilton, helped by his softer compound tires, made the winning move by overtaking the four time world champion down the pit straight on lap 44.
Further down in the top 10, other serious battles took place between Carlos Sainz and Pascal Wehrlein for the seventh place. While the third step of the podium went to Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo who went 75 seconds behind Hamilton, our very own Force India’s Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon managed to grab the fourth and fifth place respectively.
You can watch the highlights of the Spanish Grand Prix here.
