George Russell Doesn’t Sweat, He Sprinkles
Mercedes showed up and showed out at the ‘23 Spanish Grand Prix
The gloomy Barcelona Grand Prix didn’t favor either of the two Spanish drivers. Rather, the British Mercedes duo seemed at home with gray skies and amusing radio messages.
Lewis Hamilton and George Russell celebrated the team’s first double podium of the season, finishing second and third at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on Sunday.
Hamilton held firmly onto his second-row position, impressively recovering unscathed following an eager rear-end hit from Lando Norris’ McLaren.
The seven-time World Champion had underwhelming performances in both the first and second free practice sessions, placing an underwhelming 12th and 11th.
The function of practice came into full sight this weekend, and not just for the Mercedes drivers. With a new track layout—the former final low-speed corner stretching into a flat-out higher-speed finale—came trial, error and testing track limits. Drivers complained of bouncing, melting tires and challenging long right and left-hand turns, the latter contributing to uneven tire wear and weary wrists.
By Saturday, Hamilton had smoothed out the knots impeding his performance. His third-place standing in the third free practice session and fourth-place starting position post-qualifying foreshadowed a race harking back to his glory days.
Both qualifying and the main event treated fans to a performance reminiscent of a dominant Hamilton. In qualifying, he recovered from a near-crash by completing two purple sectors on his second run in Q1, outperforming the grid for a brief stint.
In the second part of qualifying, the two Mercedes knocked wheels. The bout of miscommunication induced flashbacks to the famed 2016 Spanish Grand Prix where Mercedes teammates Hamilton and Nico Rosberg took each other out. Yet, with a sigh of relief, both drivers kept their wheels steady and avoided crumpling their cars.
A quick launch into third place in lap one set the tone for a fiery Hamilton the crowd had missed. In lap eight, Hamilton rode the slipstream of Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin, cutting through a wall of high-pressure air, and used the boost in speed to slingshot forward in a tight move on the outside.
A combination of increased ground effect—which suctions the car to the track resulting in decreased dirty air—and sizable restructuring of the Mercedes car, meant picking off the rest of the placeholders came soon after. The hometown Spaniard, Carlos Sainz (Ferrari), fell prey to a pass that saw him splitting the Mercedes.
Russell had a similar race story arc. However, rather than keeping position like his teammate, the former Williams driver scaled the grid from 12th to the third podium step. Even he was surprised by the number of places achieved, expecting a more realistic fifth or sixth-place recovery.
The impressive feat followed a string of well-executed late lunges forward—overtaking Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) on lap seven, Esteban Ocon (Alpine) on lap 11 and Sainz on lap 35—but his radio messages took center stage.
Following his flagging of raindrops and dark skies in Monaco, the Brit reported for his weatherman duties once again. In practice, he was the first to point out the drizzly conditions, alerting his team of a possible tire change as the track risked resembling a slip-n-slide. In Sunday’s race, Russell phoned his race engineer on turn five to ask “Is anyone else reporting rain? I think it's sweat from the inside of my helmet.”
Despite the confusion, the terrarium of misty conditions didn’t distract him from securing his 10th career podium.
The champagne was sweet, only soured by the FIA’s investigation into possible violations from the Mercedes team as non-approved personnel breached the exclusive parc ferme post-race. The team was fined €10,000 for the intrusion.
On one hand, Mercedes is making up the ground they desperately tried to cling to at the beginning of the season. It's refreshing to hear both drivers speak positively about the car.
On the other hand, Max Verstappen’s Red Bull remained 24 seconds ahead of Hamilton. Although both drivers started on the same new soft tires during qualifying, Hamilton remained nearly a second slower.
Aside from the Australian Grand Prix, Hamilton has failed to show rival potential. This weekend ticked yet another race without a top-step podium. Despite holding the most wins in F1 history, his dry spell continues without a win since 2021.
Hamilton spoke candidly about Red Bull’s championship stance in the post-race conference.
“With the current car that we have, I don’t think that we’ll be matching their performance,” he said.
Hamilton’s right: not only is the gap significant in time on track, but the points tell a similar story. Mercedes’ 152 points pale in comparison to Red Bull’s 287. The once dominant team may have to settle for battling with Aston Martin, third in the Constructors’ Championship behind Mercedes by a slim 18 points, and Ferrari, slipping further down in fourth with 100 points gained this season. The narrow breach between the three could see a heated spat for speed as the season picks up.
But Mercedes advances in shaving off time on this track doesn’t mean they’re set up for success among the others.
An accurate comparison couldn’t be drawn between Mercedes and Aston Martin this weekend as Alonso’s scrap metal floor suffered a pelting from spinning off into the gravel. If the race pace was equal and Alonso decided to enable his drag reduction boost, the podium may have been painted green rather than silver and black.
As Aston Martin envisions a bright future with Red Bull’s engine supplier, Mercedes has an unpredictable fight ahead.
“They usually say if you’re quick in Barcelona, the car generally should be quick everywhere,” Hamilton said. “I think we will be strong in the other races. I think there will be times when the Aston may be slightly ahead or the Ferrari maybe is ahead, but I think our race pace continues to be a strength of ours, as it was last year and now this weekend we’ve understood the car even more.”
The pecking order: the rest of the grid
With humid hot laps, tire degradation was at an all-time high, resulting in teams peeking over to see what strategy their neighbors would run with. The possibility of rain only complicated the tire strategy further, as drivers had to decide how long to delay a pit stop in anticipation of a downpour.
Both Hamilton and Russell started the race limited to one set of hard tires, which may slide with the least grip but last the longest. The predicted strategy was either starting on softs with a two to three-stop pit for hard tires. Both Mercedes drivers abided by Pirelli’s predicted tire strategy start, but followed Verstappen’s unorthodox medium tire choice and made the switch to the tire with the best of both worlds: grip and speed.
Verstappen’s tire strategy, and more so his tire management, proved to be unbeatable. He simply can’t seem to quit.
The Red Bull driver’s lonely race up top and nonchalant celebratory radio message didn’t mirror just how grand his weekend was.
His third consecutive win in Spain followed placing first in all three practice sessions and qualifying. Despite a playful slap on the wrist for exceeding track limits three times, he continued to set the fastest lap, defying his go-to phrase: on the limit, not past.
The Dutch driver has always served up a show in Spain. His first win came in 2016 when he became the youngest ever race winner at 18-years-old, fending off Kimi Räikkönen after the two title fighters Russell and Rosberg crashed out. Sunday marked 40 wins in F1 for Verstappen.
Checo Perez garnered a crowd of criticism for a poor qualifying stint that caused the second Red Bull to start in 11th. However, he matched Russell’s crawl forward, finishing just shy of the two Mercedes in fourth.
Sainz, Norris and Pierre Gasly had outstanding qualifying sessions, but couldn’t keep their positions come race day. The three finished second, third and fourth behind Verstappen on Saturday. Gasly’s bad luck preceded the pack as he was struck down to 10th in the starting order for hindering two drivers’ flying laps.
As the race began, Norris’ full-throttle push forward only a few seconds after the lights went out ended poorly for the British driver as he chipped his front wing on Hamilton’s Mercedes. The close proximity at the start, with cars stacked and overtaking opportunities primed, the contact resulted in a fall from grace into last place. Norris hung back, dragging his car to 17th.
Sainz merely had a weak defensive strategy as cars sailed by and he finished the race in typical fashion: fifth place. His Ferrari teammate had worse luck, a problem with the car post-practice meant a 19th-place starting position. Despite the car refusing to cooperate, Charles Leclerc wrangled it into 11th.
Although Norris and Sainz couldn’t pass, there was plenty of overtaking across the grid to make up for their lack of progress. Of course, with ample overtaking came contention.
Both Ocon and Zhou Guanyu’s (Alfa Romeo) defensive driving was called into question—one by fans and the other by race stewards. In lap 51, Ocon and Alonso danced around each other, from one edge of the track to the next, in a move that had some spectators blaming Ocon for nearly pushing the Spanish driver off his home racetrack while the commentators pointed a finger at Alonso for a late lunge.
In a similar style, AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda was penalized for defensive driving in turn one, the stewards claiming he forced the Alfa Romeo onto the escape route. Based on the onboard camera angles, Zhou’s nose never seemed to inch ahead of Tsunoda’s, which would have dictated whose driving line had precedence.
In light of a race brimming with late passes, the decision that caused Tsnuoda to drop out of a point-scoring position seemed harsh, especially after out-performing the car and half of the drivers from lap one.
As 66 laps passed in Spain and 401 laps have passed this season with Red Bull in the lead, a speck of silver standing on the podium, a blaze of orange parking in the third qualifying spot and a blur of navy and white battling for ninth added some color to the dreary weekend.