Red Bull & Verstappen Take F1 Championship Lead In Spain As Ferrari Falters

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen took the lead of the F1 world championship with a commanding win in Barcelona, Spain as Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc retired from the race with a power unit failure. He was seemingly in command of the race for 29 laps. Ferrari’s troubles didn’t end here as its other car which featured Carlos Sainz Jr initially lost positions at the start of the race due to a stalled start and then spun into the gravel. He was only able to recover P4 by the end of the race. This means Ferrari has lost both the constructor’s championship lead as has its driver lost the lead in the driver’s championship. Leclerc was cruising to his third win of the season before his engine failed Red Bull took advantage of Ferrari’s frailties as it capped off a 1-2 with Perez coming P2. For a major chunk of the race, Perez and Verstappen duelled with George Russell in a resurgent Mercedes. The Mercedes driver managed P3 ahead of the Ferrari of Sainz. Russell again finished ahead of his 7-time world champion teammate Lewis Hamilton who recovered from the first lap incident with Kevin Magnussen to finish in P5. Both the Mercedes cars had some water leak which resulted in him overtaking Hamilton in the penultimate lap of the race. Behind them was valiant Valtteri Bottas in a P6 for Alfa Romeo, but unfortunately his teammate Guanyu Zhou didn’t finish the race. Ocon and Alonso brought in the Alpine cars for good points in P7 and P9. They were separated by Lando Norris in the McLaren who managed P8 well ahead of his Aussie teammate Ricciardo who just managed P12. Yuki Tsunoda capped off the top 10 for the AlphaTauri ahead of his teammate Pierre Gasly who managed P13. Both the upgraded Mercedes W13 cars performed well to finish P3 and P5 Vettel just managed P11 in the newly upgraded Aston Martin ahead of Lance Stroll who managed P15. Mick Schumacher at one point in the race was looking good for his first points finish but then petered off to just P15 for the Haas. He was ahead of his teammate Magnussen whose race was largely ruined because of a first-lap collision with Hamilton. He managed P17 with the Williams of Latifi being ahead of him in P16 and Albon being behind in P18. Race Results – 2022 Spanish GP Pos Car. No. Driver Team Time Points 1 1 Max Verstappen Red Bull 1:37:20.475 25 2 11 Sergio Perez Red Bull +13.072 s 19 (18 + 1 point for fastest lap) 3 63 George Russell Mercedes +32.927 s 15 4 55 Carlos Sainz Ferrari +45.208 s 12 5 44 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes +54.534 s 10 6 77 Valtteri Bottas Alfa Romeo +59.976 s 8 7 31 Esteban Ocon Alpine Renault +75.397 s 6 8 4 Lando Norris McLaren +83.235 s 4 9 14 Fernando Alonso Alpine Renault +1 lap 2 10 22 Yuki Tsunoda AlphaTauri +1 lap 1 11 5 Sebastian Vettel Aston Martin +1 lap 0 12 3 Daniel Ricciardo McLaren +1 lap 0 13 10 Pierre Gasly AlphaTauri +1 lap 0 14 47 Mick Schumacher Haas +1 lap 0 15 18 Lance Stroll Aston Martin +1 lap 0 16 6 Nicholas Latifi Williams +2 laps 0 17 20 Kevin Magnussen Haas +2 laps 0 18 23 Alexander Albon Williams +2 laps 0 NC 24 Zhou Guanyu Alfa Romeo DNF 0 NC 16 Charles Leclerc Ferrari DNF 0 2022 World Driver’s Championship Standings After Spanish GP Pos Driver Team Points 1 Max Verstappen Red Bull 110 2 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 104 3 Sergio Perez Red Bull 85 4 George Russell Mercedes 74 5 Carlos Sainz Ferrari 65 6 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 46 7 Lando Norris McLaren 39 8 Valtteri Bottas Alfa Romeo 38 9 Esteban Ocon Alpine Renault 30 10 Kevin Magnussen Haas 15 11 Yuki Tsunoda AlphaTauri 11 12 Daniel Ricciardo McLaren 11 13 Pierre Gasly AlphaTauri 6 14 Sebastian Vettel Aston Martin 4 15 Fernando Alonso Alpine Renault 4 16 Alexander Albon Williams 3 17 Lance Stroll Aston Martin 2 18 Zhou Guanyu Alfa Romeo 1 19 Mick Schumacher Haas 0 20 Nico Hulkenberg Aston Martin 0 21 Nicholas Latifi Williams 0 0 Comments For the latest auto news and reviews , follow carandbike.com on Twitter , Facebook , and subscribe to our YouTube channel.