2025 Spanish GP: Post Race Analysis

One of the best Spanish GP's that I can remember. Extreme tire wear meant a huge interval between fresh tires and used tires and it forced a load of different strategies and that alone is very exciting. Plus we had a lot of scrappy drivers today, and that's always a plus. Downside is the horrible racing rules are still causing issues. All problems could be solved by "Always leave room". It's insane that drivers agreed to these racing rules and then complain about them every single race.

McLaren have a dominant car by today's standards. Somewhat odd since they had one of the most flexible front wings and the new TD hardly affected them. Oscar is showing to be just as fast as Lando, doesn't make mistakes, and has a very calm level head. Clear favorite to be champion this season. Lando on a clear path to be 2nd in the championship once again.

Ferrari get a shocking P3 with Leclerc. A wise move to sacrifice some qualifying to save tires for the race and it paid off. Hamilton on the other hand looks like he emphasized more for qualifying and really struggled in the race. Plus the new TD likely shifted the balance and made the car less planted in the rear and Lewis once again is unable to adapt and struggles with cars that have a nervous rear end.

Mercedes perhaps have dropped some pace with the new TD as well. At least in race trim. Hard to say since Ferrari and Mercedes are so close it changes from race to race and weather of course plays a big role too. I don't blame Russell for dive bombing Verstappen, the gap was there and the rules are ridiculously favor the dive bomber. He hit Max, Max stayed ahead, all was good in my book. Then he got plunked and was lucky not to get damage. Overall a good drive and a good result. Kimi had a rough day for whatever reason.

Sauber had by far their best weekend. Both cars were competitive for points by Nico Hulkenberg was out of this world with his performance. P6 on merit, officially P5 after Verstappen's penalty. Wonderful. Bortoleto nearly had points, but was in the fight all day so that's encouraging.

RB have been carried by Hadjar once again. He has been brilliant and is without a doubt the rookie of the year so far. Superb job. Lawson is at his best when he plays bumper cars with everyone. Sorry to say, he just doesn't have it to be an F1 driver long term. He would be better off in Sports Cars or Nascar.

Alpine also relying on Gasly to hold the team up. He's been good in qualifying but finally got some points to show for it. Colapinto never got the chance to show his worth since he had a problem in qualfying. Tough break because the car looked good this weekend.

Aston Martin still a bad car overall. Alonso gets his first points of the season. He looked awfully racy today, probably too hard on his tires in the process and a rare mistake that put him in the gravel. His never give up attitude still pushed him passed Lawson and Bortoleto in the end. Stroll DNS. Couldn't have made the call before quali and let Filipe have a turn in the second car?

Red Bull appear to have taken a hit with the TD. The car looks even more edgy to drive and the gap between Verstappen and Tsunoda got bigger. Yuki getting up to P13 is a decent recovery but was never going to get points so it's still a terrible showing. Verstappen is the big story. Keeping that car within a sniff of the leaders is incredibly impressive, but in the end his own emotions cost him big points. I completely understand why he was off the charts furious. Easy P3 in the bag and then a SC. Hard tires while everyone is on softs. Huge oversteer on the restart (save of the year so far?) that let Charles get a run. Leclerc hits him on the straight. Get's dive bombed and punted off the track by George. Then his own team wrongfully tells him to give the position back saying its the rules. Seems clear he deliberately caused the collision to prove a point about "it's the rules". 100% deserved the penalty.

Williams looked absolutely terrible. Did the TD have that much of an impact on them? Sainz was nowhere all race. Albon looked stronger but got damage twice. Brutal day.

Haas another team that looked terrible. Bearman was in the fight the most and then somehow finished last of the running cars. Ocon just one place ahead.

Driver of the Day: Nico Hulkenberg. No way should he get a P5 and yet he did it. Absolutely outstanding. P10 would have been great, P5 is off the charts.

 

I was worried it would be a complete tire management race and it looked like that on lap 3. But as soon as the first pitstops happened, the race became a big question mark and full of entertainment to me.