SPANISH GRAND PRIX 2021

The Spanish Grand Prix was a lot better this year than I expected. The last few years, it has been pretty dull and was low on action, but this race was actually very exciting. The downside was that, after Max lead for 60/66 laps, Hamilton got the lead again because of tire strategy and won. Crushing disappointment, but not surprised.

Other great things that happened included Charles roasting Mazepin on the radio in FP1, Bottas being obviously punished by Mercedes by an unnecessary pit stop after he held up Hamilton in the race and wouldn't give him the win right away, and Daniel and Perez got out of the way to help Max get an advantage on Hamilton after Max's pit stop. It all was up in the air the whole race as to who would win and the whole thing came right down to the end of the race.

Free Practice 1

• Roy Nissani in for George at Williams this session

• Robert Kubica in for Kimi at Alfa Romeo

• Apparently they changed a turn from last year which won’t help overtaking and just makes everything harder

• OH MY GOSH Mazepin in the gravel already and it’s only been 4 minutes into the first session

• Charles was right behind him when Mazepin went off and saw the whole thing and said "Mazepin will never change"

• Seb lost a part of his front wing so somewhere

• Red flag for Robert Kubica putting the Alpha Romeo he was testing in the gravel

FP2

• skipped because I heard nothing happened

FP3

• Lando has a little off into the gravel like in FP1 but caught it earlier

• Bottas is just not finding speed and it’s hard to watch

Qualifying

• delay to start for track repairs from the safety team

• There is HUGE traffic jams already and it’s only Q1

• Latifi’s left mirror is cracked

• out in a1: Tsunoda, Kimi, Lil Schu, Latifi, and Mazepin

• Yuki is super mad at himself for getting out in Q1

• Perez had a spin into the gravel in Q3 but luckily he can still keep running

• Hamilton gets his 100th pole position, ughhh exhausting

• Max in second, Bot in third, and Charles in 4th!

Race

• Max gets ahead of Hamilton at the start!! Keeps the lead and Charles in 3rd and Bott in 4th - so unexpected that Max got ahead when everyone was talking about how important the qualifying grid

• Gasly under investigation for starting ahead of his pit stop

• 8/66 yellow flag for Yuki Tsunoda whose engine died and it pulls a full safety car as he retires and now they are going to have the pack back up

• Super embarrassing pit stop for Gio which is almost a full minute because they had a punctured tire that was going to be put on and they had to switch it out and Martin says he has never seen that before

• Max keeps the lead AGAIN even after the safety car!! He did a great start again and flies out front

• Gasly gets a 5 second time penalty from starting ahead of his grid spot

• Hamilton’s back right tire is blistering which is fun but then it turns out Max’s tire is blistering too so that is less fun

• 24/66 Max pits early and dips into the pit so that Ham can’t follow BUT Red Bull has a rare slower stop over 4 seconds

• Ham doesn’t put right away after Max and Mercedes extends so they will have the advantage at the end of the race then pits 28/66

• Bot pits early for Mercedes

• Wow this is tense I have no idea who is going to win here because of the different pits and tire strategies and Max is winning the whole race so far

• Daniel and Perez get out of the way to help Max after his pit stop

• Suddenly all focus is on the end of the race when Mercedes will have a supposed advantage with tires

• The slower Red Bull pit stop was really a downer and made a big difference ultimately and of course it benefited Hamilton

• Sometimes Ham gets DRS on the pit straight on Max and other times he doesn’t so every lap is stressful wondering if this is the one

• 43/66 Hamilton pits again out of NOWHERE and catches Red Bull off guard since no one expected it to be a 2 stop and Red Bull doesn’t pit right away after Hamilton’s second stop and now this is all just messed up and people are talking about it being Hungary 2019 again

• Max doesn’t pit again and they have nothing to lose by staying out and hamilton is gaining by 1 second on max with 22 laps left and he’s 22 behind so it will be last lap stuff

• They order Bottas not to hold up Lewis and he doesn’t move out of the way!! It’s awesome but then he does let him by except that he turns in on him and Lewis has to make a proper pass on his teammate hahahaha

• But THEN they put Bottas after he held up Lewis as PUNISHMENT. They say that it’s for getting the fastest lap but we all know that Mercedes would only pit Bot to punish him oh my gosh

• Max is almost held up by Ocon but then he gets out of the way but if it was Ocon as a back marker holding up Max again I would have had to quit

• A bunch of people pit near the end to try and get the fastest lap point

• 60/66 Hamilton passes Max into first BLAHHHHHHHHH

• This is the WORST

• A really exciting race but so horribly disappointing because Hamilton wins after Max lead 60/66. Crushed