Spanish GP 2021 Report: The king of Spain is a British knight

This weekend in Barcelona, Lewis Hamilton managed to achieve a staggering 100th pole position, beating Max Verstappen by 6 hundredths of a second, establishing himself as F1’s king of Spain. Mightily impressive - and he isn’t done yet.

When the five lights went out on Sunday, though, Verstappen got his elbows out and snatched the lead from Hamilton at the first corner with a bold dive down the inside. Given the difficulty of overtaking at the Circuit de Catalunya, many felt that Verstappen had the race in the bag, and that their roast dinners could be eaten earlier than they had planned. However, Hamilton managed to stay close to the young Dutchman, putting him under immense pressure throughout. A brilliant Mercedes strategy allowed Hamilton to pit for fresher tyres before catching Verstappen in the closing laps to take the win and extend his championship lead.

Hamilton and Verstappen were in a league of their own in this race, as has become the norm. Valtteri Bottas completed the podium in a distant third. A strong fourth-place finish was the best Charles Leclerc could do, despite being ahead of Bottas on lap one. Sergio Perez recovered from a wretched Saturday to finish fifth, pulling off, arguably, the overtake of the day on Daniel Ricciardo with a fantastic dive around the outside. Despite being overtaken by Pérez, McLaren's Aussie driver put in a solid weekend performance to recover from last weekend's woes and finish sixth, beating his teammate.

This Spanish Grand Prix was intriguing by any standards, not least, its own.

Biggest Winner: Charles Leclerc 

Charles showed his class once again on Sunday with a perfect drive, maximising his car's potential. It may be slightly controversial, but the more I see of him, the more I believe that he could be the one to take Lewis' crown at the top of F1 before Verstappen.

Yes, Max is more experienced than Charles. Still, in terms of raw speed, potential and racecraft, there is something about Charles that reminds me of a young Lewis, and I love it.

Biggest Loser: Yuki

For someone who is in their fourth F1 race, you could regard Yuki Tsanoda's sweary outburst and subsequent blaming of the car in qualifying as either brave or naive. He is a talented driver, and many are excited about what he can do but, even if you are the most experienced and successful driver, blaming the team so publicly helps nobody. 

I suspect that some of Yuki's comments were lost in translation as pressure continues to mount upon him. Nevertheless, the team put him in his place, as evidenced by his apologetic Sunday morning interviews, in which you could see his tail between his legs. Yuki is one of the best in the world - but everyone in F1 is the best in the world, so Yuki just needs a little patience and more hard work, and then his time will come.

Moment of the Weekend: Bottas ‘letting by' Hamilton

As Hamilton tore into Verstappen's lead on fresher tyres, he had to close their 22-second gap in as many laps, meaning that he had no time to spare. So, as Lewis came up to the back of Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes asked Valtteri to not hold up his teammate. The Finn had other ideas, though, wanting to run his race, irrelevant of the team orders that he had received. It was ironic that Toto Wolff had complained of Nikita Mazapin's slowness to let Hamilton past minutes before his own drivers were tripping over one another. 

Fortunately for Lewis and Mercedes, the Brit was eating into Max's lead at a rate of 2 seconds per lap and had a similar pace advantage over Bottas. Hamilton breezed past Bottas at the tight and high-speed turn 10, at which nobody else was daring to try an overtake. There were just millimetres in it, but Lewis was through.

It was an odd time, though, for Bottas to start being aggressive. There little point in this, given the deficit in pace, so it felt like a half-hearted subliminal message towards both the Mercedes management and Lewis. I wondered whether this might signal the start of the end of the Bottas-Mercedes relationship. But the reality is that Bottas is still doing the job Mercedes needs him to do, and he would simply be mad to leave what is still one of the best seats in Formula One.

Watch this space.

Honourable Mention: Mercedes' strategists

Last week on the podcast, Joe made the excellent observation that the Red Bull pit crew could always be relied upon to do a tremendous job. I am inspired by Joe - not for the first time, might I add - and I feel that similar praise can be attributed to the Mercedes race strategists. While they are aided by an incredible car and driver combination, Mercedes never ceases to keep everybody, from their opponents to the viewers at home, on their toes. They always seem to choose the correct route to victory - and when they don’t, they find another one. 

Race strategy is a job that many people feel they could do until they stop to think about it. Maybe that's because Mercedes make it look so simple.

AJ on the Line Line of the Weekend: Carlos Sainz - "This Hamilton guy is gonna give us a hard season, I think."

Tongue-in-cheek? Absolutely. 

It always amazes me how insightful and witty drivers can be at high speeds. Carlos didn't let any of us down with this one. With that Hamilton guy on 100 poles and 98 wins, Carlos not far from the truth there either.

So Lewis leaves Spain with a 14 point advantage over Verstappen. Surely Max needs to win the next race - that's easier said than done, though, around the streets of Monaco? Speak to you then.