Martin Brundle on the result of the Spanish Grand Prix

Former Formula 1 driver, Sky Sports F1 commentator Martin Brundle summed up the Spanish Grand Prix results…

Congratulations to Red Bull and Max Verstappen on another dominant weekend. There could be a safety car, it could rain, there could be red flags, there could be reliability issues, but when the RB19 was first out of the first chicane without taking any damage, it was clear who would win. Max started from pole position, led every lap, set the fastest lap and took victory for the Grand Slam.

Fortunately the fight behind him was interesting, although the second time in the season, but only the fourth in history (Miami’23, France’19 and Austria’19) there were no yellow or red flags in the race, no safety car , not retired.

Teams have achieved amazing reliability in these insanely complex machines. And this despite the conditions of the “closed park”, the absence of Warm-Up before the start (remember?). I don’t know why our much simpler machines were so unreliable at the time I spoke. Probably it’s all about constantly searching, developing materials and reducing production tolerances, with a huge amount of data and their analysis. In our time, it was very difficult to get to the finish line behind the wheel of a “warm old tube car”, and reliability usually determined the results of races and even championships.

The reconfiguration of the circuit in Barcelona really worked, unlike many other circuits the modern wide and heavy cars looked very cool.

Three slow corners, including one of motorsport’s most unfortunate chicanes, were turned into two very fast sections – and first corner overtaking, albeit with the help of DRS, became much more interesting. It seemed to me that it was possible to move the DRS activation point a few feet to make it even better.

I always get more pleasure from the podium, when the riders are enthusiastic and positive about the track and the atmosphere, it is contagious.

Behind Red Bull, qualifying results were pretty tight. In such a situation, it often happens that if, for example, a driver from Haas, Alpha Tauri, Alfa Romeo or Williams shines, and a driver from one of the giant teams performs poorly, the results of qualifying look unusual.

And so it happened. Sergio Perez was only 11th, Russell 12th, Charles Leclerc 19th and eventually started from the pit lane.

Cool weather and not completely dry asphalt contributed to qualifying. McLaren were able to get into the optimum range of settings for their cars for a fast lap. But this was not enough for the race distance of 66 laps.

When the starting lights went out it was clear that Verstappen was going to escape, the Mercedes cars were in good shape this weekend, while Aston Martin and Ferrari were in trouble.
Sergio Pérez made reasonable but unimpressive progress at Red Bull and Leclerc, despite having the rear of the car completely rebuilt, struggled in the tail end of the race. Pérez eventually moved up to 4th, while Leclerc missed out on the points to finish 11th.

For Charles, the season is just terrible, despite his excellent pace. Ongoing incidents, reliability issues and fines.

George Russell also had plenty of adventures this weekend, including a quick contact with teammate Lewis Hamilton in qualifying, a gravel crash on his way to the starting position for the race and a wide exit into the first corner of the race. the race he was not penalized for, he won the position by using the taxiway.

But George started well, had a great race and moved up to the third step of the podium. Hamilton, looking happy and content lately, finished second.

Despite the Mercedes drivers being 24 and 32 seconds behind Verstappen respectively, the modernization of the side pontoons has clearly helped the team, which cannot yet be said of comparable refinement at Ferrari.

After a great start to the season at Aston Martin, they lost second place in the Constructors’ Championship to Mercedes and also need an update.

Numerous Spanish spectators who were stuck in traffic jams before the race due to poor traffic management had to settle for Carlos Sainz’s fifth place, 45 seconds behind the winner, and Fernando Alonso’s seventh place. I liked how Fernando waved his hand at the crowd on the last lap, sending the car into a skid.

The fifth fastest team, after Red Bull, Mercedes, Ferrari and Aston Martin, was Alpine – drivers Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly were back in the points.

Guanyu Zhou scored a few points for Alfa Romeo after some confrontation with Yuki Tsunoda, who played too hard in the battle in my opinion.

With a nice third place at the start, Lando Norris had to say goodbye already in the second corner, when he touched Hamilton’s rear wheel and broke the front wing. The fact that only the Red Bull and Hamilton drivers could improve his lap times at the end of the race shows McLaren’s potential pace, but he eventually lost the lap leader to finish 17th.

The only thing that could challenge Red Bull’s leadership was the track limits, which Max Verstappen violated three times, was cautioned with a black and white flag, but paid no heed in the quest for another victory and another title .

The next stage takes place on the old school track in Montreal, where it’s always interesting!