F1 in Spain: An old-fashioned strategy fight can still be thrilling

Armed with a ton of new upgrades, Ferrari came to Spain full of confidence.

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[jaimelannister13]

what an interesting season thus far

 

[johnsonwax]

Was nice to see the old Lewis back. That medium stint taking 2.5s a lap out of the leaders was awesome.

 

[Abulia]

Finally, a race that was more about strategy and driving ability, rather than yo-yo passes by who presses the button first. Flat out qualifying. Pushing the cars to the limits. And putting Mercedes in their place.

Not a huge Sir Lewis fan thanks to Sky Sports, but was happy to see him get the win based on merit, determination, and just a bit of luck.

 

[jimmycee]

Was nice to see the old Lewis back. That medium stint taking 2.5s a lap out of the leaders was awesome.

Yep it was like the Hammertime of old. Lovely to see.

 

[LG11]

Was there anyone not enjoying that win? It so much nicer to see someone with his credentials winning instead of slowly fading away. Good stuff. And like @Abulia said: this seemed like a real race, a first this year.

 

[johnsonwax]

Did Ferrari really make the right strategy call? I'd say not. They just got extremely lucky.

They managed to lose only 13 seconds (rather than 22) on their second pit and still only won by 20 seconds.

Based on the strategy, he would have put on mediums with the Mercedes 12 laps into their tires. Based on how fast he was in the 3rd stint, I have to think he would have eaten them alive on new rubber.

 

[MWells]

Did Ferrari really make the right strategy call? I'd say not. They just got extremely lucky.

They managed to lose only 13 seconds (rather than 22) on their second pit and still only won by 20 seconds. That's with running in clear air or not having to attack or defend anyone trying to take the front spot that entire time while the two Mercedes were fighting the whole way.

Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. It's pretty clear that without that perfectly-timed virtual safety car Hamilton would have come out behind Antonelli who would have slowed him enough to prevent catching Russell.

If it works out, he wins. If it doesn't, he finishes second. In a straight fight, he'd be very hard pushed to overtake the lead Merc anyway, so there was really nothing to lose.

Plus, by pitting early, he forced all the two-stoppers to pit early in response, putting them onto a sub-optimal strategy with a long final stint.

It was honestly the smartest thing I've seen Ferrari do in years.

 

[UnnDunn]

This was definitely a fun one to watch, not just for the race itself, but also what it portends for the rest of the season; it no longer looks like a Mercedes slam-dunk for the championship. Ferrari had better reliability and consistency last season and that seems to be continuing this season. And now they seem to have the pace to at least take the fight to Mercedes.

 

[ubercurmudgeon]

According to Nico Hulkenberg, his Audi's kill switch was activated by a piece of gravel, thrown up by Liam Lawson's car, while both were running in the points. If true, Lawson should probably take up golf, because he'd be nailed on to win the Masters with his ability to hit holes-in-one.

 

[strx]

Those upgrades Ferrari brought are kind of crazy. I understand that Antonelli and Russell lost time while battling for P2, but still. Last week Kimi just drove off into the distance after the safety car restart and this week Lewis kind of did the same.

I think that both teams get to bring engine upgrades to Austria. I’m very excited to see how that will turn out. And a bit bummed that I’m not going this year.

 

[Jakelshark]

Surprised there was no mention of the weirdness of the Monaco ruling

Great strategy race to watch though

 

[UnnDunn]

Surprised there was no mention of the weirdness of the Monaco ruling

Great strategy race to watch though

Nothing really weird about it; Alpine was the only team to lodge an appeal on the pit-lane speed limit infraction, so Gasly was the only one to get his penalty rescinded.

 

[Abulia]

According to Nico Hulkenberg, his Audi's kill switch was activated by a piece of gravel, thrown up by Liam Lawson's car, while both were running in the points. If true, Lawson should probably take up golf, because he'd be nailed on to win the Masters with his ability to hit holes-in-one.

Liam does play golf. There was a video interview last week showing him doing it. While he looks to have fun, he didn't seem very good.

But yea, the kill switch DNF from gravel was just crazy bad luck for Nico.

 

[Just_dave]

Did Ferrari really make the right strategy call? I'd say not. They just got extremely lucky.

They managed to lose only 13 seconds (rather than 22) on their second pit and still only won by 20 seconds. That's with running in clear air or not having to attack or defend anyone trying to take the front spot that entire time while the two Mercedes were fighting the whole way.

Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. It's pretty clear that without that perfectly-timed virtual safety car Hamilton would have come out behind Antonelli who would have slowed him enough to prevent catching Russell.

You're making some very big assumptions there. Was Lewis pushing 100% the entire last stint while he was in the lead? Almost certainly not. Once you're ~20 seconds out front, you're not particularly concerned about bein 30 or 40 seconds out front as well. Lewis' pace compared to the Mercs while pushing suggests that he would have easily been able to catch and pass if he had needed to.

Also, your math doesn't math. If he lost 13 seconds instead of 22 seconds (9 second difference) because of the VSC pit, then all else being equal he would have finished 11 seconds ahead of the mercs instead of 20 seconds. You don't add the length of a full pitstop to the length of the VSC pitstop.

 

[Abulia]

Ferrari absolutely made the right strategy call; the VSC just helped a bit. Lewis' lap times--and the ability to drive the tyres to the end of their lives--because Ferrari committed to a 3-stop race early, is what made the difference. Ferrari--likely due in part to their upgrades--put together a strategy to race to win versus Mercedes, who were racing to not lose.

Even with a full 3rd stop w/o VSC, Lewis would have had the pace on fresh rubber to go after the Mercs; he was eating something like ~2.5s a lap out of them on the previous stint. Yes, he would have had to pass but that didn't seem like an issue for the Ferrari; Charles was carving his way through the field as well.

And once you get the lead, you really only need +5s to cover off a potential track limits penalty. Ultimately, no one gives a shit if you win by less than a second or by +30s. The points are the same.

 

[gosand]

An entire F1 story with no mention of Max - times, they are a changing.

 

[Tridus]

Surprised there was no mention of the weirdness of the Monaco ruling

Great strategy race to watch though

I don't know, I thought it was nice to focus on this race rather than spend another week talking about Monaco. It's all still going on, given that multiple teams are now looking at potentially appealing the outcome of the right of review.

 

[Keith Tanner]

It's not often you see a race blown up by a strategy call on lap 27. That was fantastic, and a happy Lewis is a very fast Lewis. He would have won that race easily even without the VSC, but Ferrari had also put themselves in a position to take advantage of it.

I felt for Kimi, finally getting past George just to have an immediate mechanical failure. He worked hard for that pass and was about to run away into the distance. If there had been no VSC and Merc had swapped the drivers earlier, would Kimi have been able to hold off Hamilton? There's something to talk about at the pub. It was good to see that Kimi is just as happy for Lewis when he wins as when the roles are reversed, too.

Best part of the weekend was when Lewis, running 2.5s faster than anyone else, asked if he was gaining

 

[Keith Tanner]

Strategy has a way of winning F1 races when a team or driver already has an underlying pace advantage. The strategy tends to obfuscate the obvious advantage of speed until the final pit stops are taken.

Too much is made of it.

I've worked as a crew chief for a winning endurance racing team. Strategy is critical. Racing is a game of high speed chess - casual viewers think it's just a matter of "put foot down drive fast" but it's a whole lot deeper than that. Races are won and lost by decisions made well before the checkered flag.

 

[appliance]

Finally, a race that was more about strategy and driving ability, rather than yo-yo passes by who presses the button first. Flat out qualifying. Pushing the cars to the limits. And putting Mercedes in their place.

Not a huge Sir Lewis fan thanks to Sky Sports, but was happy to see him get the win based on merit, determination, and just a bit of luck.

Not sure where you're going here. Hamilton has more wins than any F1 racer in history. What he had to battle from chilkdhood was shown clearly in the Abu Dhabi debacle, where rules were changed during the race. So winning based on "merit, determination" is something he done many times over.

 

[Stuart Frasier]

One thing that was interesting was that there was no talk of superclipping. Have the changes to deployment done the job or will the issues arise again at tracks like Spa and Monza? The mediums seemingly had no deg advantage over the softs at the start. I was expecting Lewis to get swallowed up after not getting to the lead at the start. Another interesting thing was that cars (well, mostly Hadjar) were able to make passes in places that are usually not considered viable in Barcelona.

 

[johnsonwax]

Crew chiefs have nothing to do with strategy.
Tell me some of the other jobs you've done.

Racing is about going fast and leaving nothing on the table.

Brother needs to watch some endurance racing...

 

[mysciencefriend]

Crew chiefs have nothing to do with strategy.
Tell me some of the other jobs you've done.

What jobs, pray tell, have you held in professional motorsports that would make your thoughts on this matter more insightful than theirs?

 

[Keith Tanner]

Crew chiefs have nothing to do with strategy.
Tell me some of the other jobs you've done.

Racing is about going fast and leaving nothing on the table. Strategy, for the most part is just a game of hiding advantages that really make the result. If you're winning, you have choices; if you're losing, you're losing, no matter which call you make.

Yeah, you can lose a race by ballsing up 'strategy' really badly but that rarely happens. Usually it's just crew chiefs screwing up.

The crew chief is the one talking to the strategy team and juggling the cars. They actually implement the strategy so they're quite aware of it. As you noted, they've got the ability to screw it up as well. Ever had to make the call at 7 AM, 19 hours into a race, as to whether you should take the time to do a brake pad change or not? That's not a matter of just sending it, that's a matter of evaluating just how fast you're using the brakes and what you think your lap times will be if you do or don't. That decision comes after hours of measuring pad wear at every fuel stop. Or maybe one of the team cars has just rolled at dawn and it has the only good remaining transmission in it, do you call in the car with the bent shift fork that can only use 4th gear into the pits so you can do a transmission swap? The answer to the former was "yes" and it won us the race. The answer to the latter was "no, because we'd lose time overall even though we'd be able to go faster".

Other jobs? Mechanic, fueler, car builder - and this is for pro or semi-pro Thunderhill 25H teams, not Lemons. I've also been a rally driver and team principal on week long rallies, there is a lot of strategy there as well as to when to push and how to manage the limited number of tires.

If you think it's just going fast and leaving nothing on the table, you'll lose to someone who's playing at a higher level. The trick is to drive just fast enough to finish in a shorter overall time than anyone else. Some of the classic Le Mans battles back in the day involved sending out a "rabbit" to force other teams to drive fast, leave nothing on the table and then break. The rabbit isn't expected to survive, but it pulls the other team into an undesirable strategy. Ferrari pulled a good one this past weekend, that pit stop on lap 27 forced Mercedes to choose between two bad strategies despite having a car with faster ultimate pace. You can also nurse a car along at a slower speed if it means you maintain track position and cut your time in the pits - some of Lewis' best drives have had him eking incredible lifespan out of a set of tires. Remember the set of inters that he ran down to (terrible) slicks to finish first a number of years back?

 

[twilightomni]

Is Charles having more vehicle issues because he keeps destroying his replacement parts? This happened at some point mid-2025 to Yuki where Mekies admitted Yuki was stuck with a lower-spec car than Max after they ran out of replacement parts.

 

[OSB]

Racing is about going fast and leaving nothing on the table. .

I mean I guess we could all listen to you, Some Actual Guy On the Internet, or we could listen to Alain Prost, perhaps the smartest WDC of the bunch: "I always say that my ideal is to get pole with the minimum effort, and to win the race at the slowest speed possible."

 

[Keith Tanner]

Yawn.
You're a mechanic. You do the work. You don't make the calls.
Same as me in my day but we didn't do pitstops in Formula Atlantic.

Was that too many words? Mechanic, driver, team principal were all mentioned for race types that range from 25h to a full week. And even in cases where I wasn't actually making the calls, I was part of the team that was actually implementing the strategy and often involved in discussions as to what could and couldn't be done. That means I was aware of it. And in other cases, I was solely responsible for the calls, making decisions that could have an effect days later. So yes, yawn.

Formula Atlantic is sprint racing. There's still some strategy to manage tires and temperatures, but it's more subtle than actual endurance racing. F1 races are long enough that the latter comes in to play even if it's not as extreme as WEC.

 

[OSB]

Someone needs to explain to me why this isn't just watching traffic.

We really don't, because it sounds an awful lot like you've made your decision.