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Lewis Hamilton wins Spanish GP after race-long battle with Sebastian Vettel
Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton won Sunday’s Spanish GP from pole after a race-long battle with Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in Spain. This is Hamilton's 55th career win and second of the season.
There was drama into Turn 1 as, while Vettel won the race against Hamilton into the first turn, behind it wasn’t so clean.
Valtteri Bottas, Max Verstappen and Kimi Raikkonen went three-wide into Turn 1. Contact between Bottas - on the inside - and Raikkonen kicked the Ferrari out into Verstappen’s Red Bull, taking Raikkonen and Verstappen out.
As Verstappen and Raikkonen came back out onto the track, Felipe Massa had to take evasive action and hit Fernando Alonso. Massa dropped to the back while Alonso dropped to 11th but both were able to continue.
All of the incidents were investigated but no action was taken.
Up front, Vettel led until Lap 14 when he made his first stop and dropped back to fourth. He got back by Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo for third and then Lewis Hamilton pitted for medium-compound tires on Lap 21.
The result was Bottas was now leading ahead of Vettel, who was 7 seconds ahead of Hamilton. However, Bottas did a great job holding Vettel up for two laps before the Ferrari driver finally made an incredible pass into Turn 1 on Lap 25 that moved him back up into the top spot. But now Hamilton was only 3 seconds behind and had used two compounds of tires.
Bottas soon lost second to Hamilton and Vettel started pulling away again.
On Lap 35, a Virtual Safety Car was deployed after Stoffel Vandoorne and Massa made contact, resulting in Vandoorne retiring from the race.
Mercedes took advantage of the Virtual Safety Car to stop Hamilton and put soft tires on his car, while Ferrari lost out as they didn’t pit Vettel for medium tires until after the Virtual Safety Car period had been lifted.
The result was that Vettel came out of the pits alongside Hamilton. The two banged wheels and Vettel came out ahead, until Hamilton finally got by two laps later. However, having softer tires than Vettel, Hamilton would suffer from more tire wear problems in the closing laps of the race.
Also, his teammate Bottas was now unable to help out as his Mercedes power unit suffered a failure, forcing him to retire.
Despite the tire wear, Hamilton held on to win ahead of Vettel and Ricciardo - the only three cars on the lead lap - and then many drivers and teams behind who picked up good points following the retirements for Verstappen, Raikkonen and Bottas.
The Force India teammates were fourth and fifth ahead of Nico Hulkenberg’s Renault in sixth. Pascal Wehrlein crossed the line in seventh but had a five-second time penalty for an incorrect pit entry, dropping him to eighth behind Carlos Sainz. Daniil Kvyat and Romain Grosjean rounded out the point scorers. Kevin Magnussen had been in ninth in the closing laps but suffered a puncture after contact with Kvyat.
"That's how racing should be," said Hamilton on the podium. "Sebastian was incredibly fast but my team did a great job with the strategy."
The next F1 race will be the Monaco GP in two weeks' time.
Unofficial race results:
1. Lewis Hamilton
2. Sebastian Vettel
3. Daniel Ricciardo
4. Sergio Perez
5. Esteban Ocon
6. Nico Hulkenberg
7. Carlos Sainz
8. Pascal Wehrlein
9. Daniil Kvyat
10. Romain Grosjean
11. Kevin Magnussen
12. Marcus Ericsson
13. Fernando Alonso
14. Felipe Massa
15. Jolyon Palmer
16. Lance Stroll
17. Valtteri Bottas - DNF
18. Stoffel Vandoorne - DNF
19. Max Verstappen - DNF
20. Kimi Raikkonen - DNF
