Lewis Hamilton streaks ahead to win in Spain

Lewis Hamilton led every lap of the Spanish Grand Prix to claim his fourth race victory of the 2020 season, extending his lead at the top of the drivers’ championship.

Max Verstappen could only split the two Mercedes despite hopes that he could claim a second straight win after victory at Silverstone last weekend, with Valtteri Bottas completing the podium places in P3.

This was Hamilton’s fourth victory at Catalunya, with the six-time world champion dominant in his performance, establishing an advantage in the opening lap that meant he couldn’t be caught at the front of the pack.

The Racing Points of Sergio Perez and Lance Stroll finished fourth and fifth respectively while Sebastian Vettel enjoying a rare positive race, claiming seventh place after the retirement of his Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc.

Once again, some pressing questions will be asked of Ferrari after a disastrous qualification showing on Saturday and the retirement of Leclerc due to an electrical fault. However, Vettel deserves a lot of credit for outperforming the car with a P7 finish, managing his tyres well on a one-stop strategy, even if Ferrari somewhat stumbled into that strategy. There’s still some life left in the former world champion.

1/66 - First lap! Bottas has lost two places, with Verstappen up into second ahead of Stroll! It was the Canadian who passed the Mercedes into the first corner. Sorry, got a bit confused between the two Racing Points. Bottas is having some trouble in keeping Perez behind him!

6/66 - Bottas is through! Bottas has managed to get past Stroll and some of the damage of the opening lap has been reversed. The Finn had the engine turned up and had no issues in getting past the Racing Point despite the bravery of Stroll!

38/66 - Leclerc spins! Oh dear! What happened there? Leclerc has spun and it looks like his race is over! The safety car is out as the Ferrari isn't firing back up! He was all over the back of Norris, so did he push it too hard? We'll learn some more from the replays. That was strange.

50/66 - Bottas box, box! Mercedes bring in Bottas to move him on to the Soft tyres. He's got around six seconds to make up on Verstappen. Hamilton has just been on the Mercedes team radio begging them to keep him out and not move him on to the Soft tyres like his teammate. Interesting.

54/66 - Perez penalty! The stewards have decided that Perez did indeed ignore blue flags and the Mexican driver has been handed a five-second time penalty. That is going to make it difficult for Racing Point to keep hold of fourth place. Vettel is making things tough for them.

Hamilton wins the Spanish GP! It's another race victory for Hamilton and that was a bit of a procession for the defending world champion! Verstappen finishes second to split the two Silver Arrows with Bottas in P3 to complete the podium places.

“How about we just focus on our race first instead of looking for Lewis? Clearly on the soft tyre we are not as fast as them. Make sure we do our job, and let them do their job,” Verstappen fumed at his race engineer after being informed of the strategy to manage the tyres after just 20 laps.

“Get your head down Max, please,” the response came back. A ticking-off from the headmaster.

Catalunya isn’t known for being an overtaking track, but Carlos Sainz managed to pull a nice pass on Vettel in the final few laps to claim fifth place at his home Grand Prix. It was a mixed weekend for McLaren with Lando Norris only just finishing in the points in P10.