Barcelona (AP) - Lewis Hamilton's 88th victory. Three more and the British Formula 1 superstar has reached Michael Schumacher's record. Within a few days, he and his Mercedes team got the tire problems under control.
But there is more insight from the Spanish Grand Prix.
HAMILTON DRIVES THE SEVENTH TITLE: Recently there was some hope of an exciting World Cup. That was after the races at Silverstone. Mercedes and Hamilton struggled with the tires. But once again the 35-year-old six-time Formula 1 world champion and his team proved that defeats only make them (even) stronger. Hamilton drove a lonely race in Spain, he controlled the action at all times. The tires held up despite the great heat. Four wins in six races - Hamilton relegated the rest of the field to extras on his historic road to success.
VERSTAPPEN, THE PREVENTED WINNER: He did what was possible. He took out what was inside. Max Verstappen confirmed his strong victory in Silverstone, even if he had to admit defeat to Hamilton this time. The Dutch Red Bull star grabbed his team mate Valtteri Bottas in the no less superior second Silver Arrow right from the start. The hope of making it into the history books as the youngest world champion this year faded, however. 37 points behind and the realization: To secure second place behind Hamilton is the world championship of the beaten.
FERRARI AND THE TACTICS: It was luck. Sebastian Vettel himself had to admit that. Except that here a four-time world champion spoke about saving seventh place on the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. Again: seventh place. That secured Vettel the entry as the second driver in Formula 1 history behind Hamilton with more than 3000 points. Seventh place should not be the claim for either Vettel or Ferrari.
After the race, the reflexes to incidents from the recent past together were similar: The funkzoff was forgotten, everything was okay. You don't see the big picture, said Vettel, who freaked out in the race, but then continues to be remarkably loyal. That his team predicted rain from lap 50 and was wrong - forgotten. That he didn't get a reasonable answer to the question of how he was supposed to get through more than half of the race with the soft tires - forgot. That his team asked him again if he wanted to drive through with the tires - forgotten. "Ferrari can neither make weather forecasts nor communicate with its own driver," complained ex-driver Ralf Schumacher as a Sky expert.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 200817-99-191920 / 2
