RED BULL’S DEJA VU SETS HAMILTON ON THE WINNING PATH
“It could be Hungary all over again here.” Max Verstappen’s engineer Gianpiero Lambiase called it perfectly, and painfully, as Lewis Hamilton peeled off from behind his charge to pit for a second time with a third of the 2021 Spanish Grand Prix remaining. In that moment, Red Bull realised that Mercedes had set the board in horribly familiar fashion, sending Hamilton on a late-race charge with a tyre-life-offset advantage to win the encounter in much the same way as he had done at the Hungaroring in 2019.
At least Red Bull’s considerable progress since the previous Barcelona race and Verstappen’s first-corner boldness had made it an engaging, if not action-packed, contest. But such was the swing that Mercedes’ strategists had found with their second big call of the race that, when the moment of victory finally came, it wasn’t all that climactic.
At the end of lap 59 of 66 – six laps earlier than Mercedes’ calculations had estimated – Hamilton raced onto the pit straight just 0.5s behind Verstappen, in position to make the race-winning pass. The Dutchman weaved across the road to try to break the tow he was producing, but defeat was inevitable. Hamilton surged level using his DRS advantage, then his fresher rubber allowed him to brake later and sweep into Turn 1 on the racing line – his 98th Formula 1 career win was all but sealed.
Yet 59 laps earlier at that spot, Hamilton could have been forgiven for thinking he’d lost the race. The polesitter – a position Hamilton was in for the 100th time in his remarkable career – had made a
