2024 Formula 1 Spanish Grand Prix Highlights

Max Verstappen sealed an assured victory in the 2024 Formula 1 Spanish Grand Prix as he held off the challenge of pole-sitter Lando Norris to take his seventh win of the season.

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It was a very intense and, at times, spectacular race, and here I’m thinking of Russell’s incredible start, similar to Alonso’s from 2011, and the duels between George above, first with Max and then with Lando. The race among the leaders was like a game of chess between the four teams who filled the top eight places, with the moves made up of strategy choices and tyre management.

However, from our side, it was actually a very linear race. All three compounds performed as expected, both in terms of wear and degradation, despite the temperatures being significantly higher than predicted yesterday. The same can be said for the strategies regarding tyre usage and the pit stop windows. Soft and Medium delivered the best performance, while despite the higher temperatures, the Hard struggled a bit in terms of overall performance, while not offering a decisive advantage when it came to degradation.

The day on the track:

There were no retirements this afternoon, with 11 20 drivers going the full distance, while nine were lapped. All 19 drivers on the grid started on the Soft C3, while Albon, who had to start from the pit lane in his Williams, went for the C2. The pit stops began as early as lap 9 with Tsunoda, but the leaders waited until lap 15 (Sainz and Russell) to switch to Mediums, with Norris and Leclerc lengthening their stints as much as possible to lap 23 for the former and 24 for the latter.

The Hard also came into play for the third stint, used by most drivers. However, among the leaders, the Soft held sway for the final part of the race, chosen by Verstappen, Hamilton, Leclerc and the McLaren pair. Only Sainz and Russell opted for the Hard.

Just two drivers, Perez and Tsunoda, made three stops, while 12 used all three available compounds. Apart from the two already mentioned, the only drivers who did not were Perez, Albon, and Bottas. The Finn actually ran the longest stint, doing 37 laps on the Hard, while Zhou topped the list for Medium stints, doing 32 laps, and Leclerc managed 24 on the Soft.

What’s next?

The Formula 1 World Championship calendar is at its busiest right now, with five Grands Prix in the space of six weeks: after Barcelona, it’s the Austrian Grand Prix next weekend, the third round this year to feature the Sprint format. Also, this coming weekend, Spa-Francorchamps hosts the Crowdstrike 24 Hours, the most important Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe round. No fewer than 67 cars will be on the track, all running Pirelli tyres.

2024 Formula 1 Spanish Grand Prix Race Results

2024 Constructor Standings

Here are the team-by-team highlights:

Oracle Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen won the 2024 Formula 1 Spanish Grand Prix for a record fourth time as he secured his seventh victory of the season to extend his championship lead over Ferrari’s Charles LeClerc.

Having started on the front row behind McLaren’s Lando Norris, the Dutch driver found himself behind the Mercedes of George Russell by the end of the first lap. Verstappen moved into first place a few laps later and cruised to victory, finishing two seconds clear of Norris.

Max Verstappen, Driver, Red Bull Racing

We made some good set-up changes going into qualifying, and the car was much better. I think we really maximised that, and the car felt more connected and nicer to drive. We were strong into the high speed, and I felt comfortable there, and the high-speed corners were quick. We have had a clean weekend and have been fine-tuning the car throughout the week. During the practice session, I felt we were not the quickest out there, but qualifying felt good. McLaren was quick the whole weekend, and we have been a little behind them, so we need to look at what we can do to optimise the performance tomorrow and be more competitive. Looking to tomorrow, I think it will be very tight; it will be about how we approach the tyres, especially with the high degradation. It will be a close and exciting race tomorrow. We need to analyse a few things, but qualifying has been good, so we can aim to fight for the win.

Sergio Pérez, Driver, Red Bull Racing:

We struggled a little bit with the pace today, and it was super hard to pass anyone on that first stint, especially in the dirty air; I was managing my tyres and in a DRS train. I think that ultimately compromised our race, and we had some balance issues with the soft tyre, which made things harder than predicted. Given our starting position, we switched to a three-stop strategy, which meant we managed to save what I believed was the maximum today. Our Saturday was the main problem, and I am pretty disappointed because we haven’t been able to maximise the potential in the car this weekend, at least on my side. Max did a tremendous job today to come away with the win. I have learned a lot this weekend for the coming weeks, and I am hopeful we can be more competitive and come back strong in Austria. I must help deliver perfect weekends for the Team because it will be a very competitive season.

CHRISTIAN HORNER, CEO and Team Principal

Max drove a brilliant race today, and we got it just right strategically. The first lap was crucial, with the start being one element of it, but Max also needed to overtake the Mercedes at the right moment and then quickly get the tyres under control, which is very difficult under pressure. Checo was on a three-stop strategy today, and he executed a tricky race with good overtakes to secure points, so he should take some confidence away from the weekend. It was a very exciting race with hard, fair racing and small margins. McLaren is doing a great job, Ferrari isn’t far away, and Mercedes has made progress as well, but we’re just keeping our nose ahead, and it’s important that we keep pushing because there are still many more races to go.

The 2024 Formula 1 Spanish Grand Prix was not particularly rewarding for Scuderia Ferrari HP. Charles Leclerc, Carlos Sainz and the team tried to move up the order, adopting different strategies regarding the tyre choices, but it wasn’t enough to move forward from the fifth and sixth places they had occupied on the grid. The team leaves Barcelona with a further 18 points, still second in the Constructors’ championship, aware that it needs to make progress in qualifying to start further up the grid, given that the gaps between the front runners are very close, which means it’s hard to overtake and gain places on Sunday.

The race. Charles and Carlos started on new Soft tyres, hoping to have the edge over the Mercedes who started on used ones, but off the line, they could not get ahead, running fifth and sixth, even if the Spaniard soon got ahead of his team-mate. Sainz was the first Ferraris to pit, switching to Medium tyres on lap 15, while Leclerc stayed out, running an acceptable pace until lap 21. At the second stop, the teams, therefore, split the strategies: Carlos came in on lap 36 fitting a set of new Hards, while once again, Charles prolonged his stint, which meant he could risk running a set of Softs to the end of the race. Sainz, therefore, let Leclerc pass on lap 55, the Monegasque then setting off in pursuit of George Russell to try and snatch fourth place. He caught up with the Mercedes driver on the last lap, but it was too late to try an overtaking move, which would have been on the cards if only the race had been one lap longer.

Second of three. In the coming days, all the data from this event will be analysed so that the team can prepare for next weekend’s second race in this triple-header, the Austrian Grand Prix at the Spielberg circuit, which also sees the return of the Sprint format.

Carlos Sainz #55

It was a difficult race, but we did our best. Stopping early and finishing the race on the Hard tyre didn’t turn out to be the optimal strategy today, but we only know this with hindsight after the chequered flag. In any case, we lacked a bit of pace this weekend, and we need to work to improve for next weekend in Austria. A massive thank you goes to every fan who came to the track today and those who followed and supported us from home. A home race for a driver is always special and Barcelona is no exception for me.

Charles Leclerc #16

It was tight today, and we were just a lap short of fighting for P4, but our competitors were still ahead in terms of pace. Regarding our strategy, I think we did well to offset ourselves from the cars around us. We may have lost sometime between our two cars at the beginning of the race, but going forward, we will focus on our race pace and extract the maximum from our package at the next race.

Frédéric Vasseur – Team Principal

We started five and six and ended five and six, and the conclusion I draw from this is that we must do a better job qualifying. We need to make a small step forward so we don’t start behind, as this pushes you into taking risks with the strategy. Yesterday, the gap to those in front was about two-tenths; today, it was similar, and if you look at it over the race distance, then that was still the same. As for the contact between our drivers, it was very light, and I don’t think it cost us anything. What cost us more is that after our stops, we came out behind some cars; it was very tight, and we lost two or three seconds. We wanted to cover Russell with Carlos, so we had to go Medium-Hard as we pitted earlier. With Charles, the plan was to extend the stint to go a bit longer, which is why we were able to try the Softs. With such small gaps between the teams, everything can change: there are four teams in two to two and a half tenths so that the pecking order can change from track to track. Next week, we race in Austria, where we will have another Sprint, and I expect the track layout there will suit us better.

Lewis Hamilton finished third, and George Russell fourth in the 2024 Formula 1 Spanish Grand Prix. The team locked out the second row, and at the start, George vaulted into the lead with a superb around-the-outside move.

The Red Bull of Verstappen pushed hard in the early stages and took the lead before George pitted from P2 on lap 15 for the Medium tyre.
Lewis extended his first stint, which enabled him to take the Soft tyre at his final stop instead of the Hard compound that George and Carlos Sainz would have to use. Lando Norris’s pace in the McLaren ultimately enabled him to leapfrog our duo, but it was a race for the final podium spot with the Ferraris that occupied the team’s attention.

George covered Sainz at his final stop whilst Lewis and Leclerc went long again. Emerging behind George and Sainz, Lewis used the Soft compound and fresher rubber to move up to P3 and take his first Grand Prix podium of the season. George, meanwhile, managed his final stint on the hard compound well enough to take P4 at the flag. That capped another solid weekend for the team as we look forward to the second race of the triple-header in Austria this week.

George Russell

Unfortunately, a few things went against us today. We had a slow first pit stop, and then the Hard tyre didn’t feel great in the final stint. Nevertheless, as a team, our aim was to maximise what we could achieve today, and we did that with P3 and P4. Lewis drove a great race today, and we take away the huge positives from what has been a very promising last couple of races.

I was dreaming of making a move like I did into turn one last night. I didn’t think it would quite come to fruition like it did! I remember Fernando (Alonso) making a similar start in 2013. We had a headwind, so I knew I could break quite late. It was a very satisfying move, and it felt good to lead a race again. Unfortunately, as was Lando, Max (Verstappen) was too fast for us today. But two podiums in two races are encouraging as we head to Austria.

Lewis Hamilton

It’s been a really great weekend. It’s been a while since I’ve been on the podium, so I’m very happy! We’re not quite there yet, but we’ve taken a huge step in recent races. We didn’t quite have the pace to fight with the two guys ahead of us, but we will be in a strong position if we can deliver more consistently like this. We are on our way to catching those guys, which is fantastic.

I had a really bad start, which was unfortunate. The race may have been slightly different if I had gotten off the line better, but ultimately, I think P3 was the maximum today. I was pleased with my move to Sainz, too. I gave him enough room, and we both made it through the corner. It was an important move for my race, so I was glad to get it done. It’s now on to Austria, and we’re looking forward to it.

Toto Wolff, Team Principal & CEO

We can take a lot of positives away from today. We have taken several steps forward in the previous few races, and it is good to see these confirmed here in Spain. We are not quite there yet and have more to do to catch those ahead. Nevertheless, we are on a positive development trajectory, and it feels good to be back in the game.

It was also fantastic to see Lewis pull off two of the best overtakes I’ve seen in a long time. George made a mega start and braked late to take the lead. Meanwhile, Lewis’s overtake on Sainz was a great racing and an important moment for his race. It’s been a while since we’ve enjoyed a Grand Prix podium with Lewis, so it was fantastic to see him up there. We’re now looking forward to the next two races in the triple-header and building on the momentum we are establishing.

Hear from McLaren Formula 1 drivers Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri, and Team Principal Andrea Stella after the 2024 Formula 1 Spanish Grand Prix.

After starting from pole position, Lando loses two places. Oscar gains a position. The pit stop window opens. Lando stays out and moves back into P1. Oscar moves up to P3. Running out of tyres, Oscar gets overtaken by Verstappen. Oscar boxes, swapping his Softs to Mediums. He comes out in P11. Lando boxes have also been switched to medium tyres. He comes out in P6. Lando overtakes Sainz for P4 on fresher tyres, and Oscar overtakes several cars for P8. Lando returns to the top three after overtaking Hamilton for P3 and Russell for P2. Oscar overtakes Gasly for P7. The grid starts to pit again, including race leader Verstappen. Lando is P1. Oscar boxes for Soft tyres on Lap 47, with Lando, following later that lap. Oscar is P8, Lando P2. Despite reducing their gaps to the cars ahead, Lando finishes P2, and Oscar finishes P7.

Lando Norris

A frustrating start, simple as that. I lost a little bit to Max; he wasn’t completely alongside, but with George on the outside, I didn’t have room to manoeuvre, which had me over. It’s disappointing, but there are still a lot of positives to take away from Barcelona. We come away with a lot of points and the car was amazing today, I think we were the quickest out there, so a big thanks to the entire team for their efforts throughout the weekend.

We’re now focusing on Austria and Silverstone, two of my favourite circuits and tracks where we have a good record, so I’m excited. We’re in a good spot and doing well each week. I need to tidy up a few little bits in the upcoming races.

Oscar Piastri

P7 rounds off a tough weekend. I think today’s race was a positive to take away, but overall, it was a challenging few days in Spain. Obviously, qualifying was the biggest frustration, making it very difficult to go into the race. I think we did some good things on strategy, trying to pull ourselves up, but ultimately, we didn’t quite have the pace this weekend. However, we’ll go to Austria again next week.

Andrea Stella

When you start from pole position gained on merit, it’s always a little disappointing not being able to convert it into a race win. However, today’s race was decided on some details, particularly the fact that we couldn’t keep the first position at the first corner. But Lando was careful, and there was not much we could do with Russell gaining through the slipstream and Verstappen having the inside into corner one.

From there, we lost a bit of time in the first stint, but actually, thanks to the strong pace of the car and a very good strategy, we recovered most of this time, and we were close to Max once again at the end of the race. On Oscar’s side, it’s good that we could recover some of the positions and score important points for the team in our quest for the Championship.

I want to take the opportunity to thank all the teams, the FIA, F1 and the local services that showed a great sense of support and gave their assistance when we lost access to the Team Hub during the race weekend. That was much appreciated and showed a strong sense of community, which I would like to applaud and remark.

Fernando and Lance finished P12 and P14 under the Spanish sunshine at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

Fernando began the Spanish Grand Prix in P10, while Lance started in P14. Both opted to begin the Grand Prix on the Soft compound tyre. Both drivers were on similar strategies. They made their first pit stop for Mediums. Later in the race, both drivers pitted for Hard tyres, which continued until the end of the race. Fernando finished his home race in P12, while Lance classified P14.

Fernando Alonso

It was disappointing not to score any points this weekend in front of the home fans. We struggled with our pace the whole weekend and suffered from high tyre degradation in today’s race. It’s likely to be tough over the next few race weekends, but we will get our heads down, work even harder, and look to improve. We have Austria next weekend and the team’s home race at Silverstone.

Lance Stroll

We knew today would be challenging, but it was still a tough race. We went for the two-stop strategy,, and, as expected, much of the race was spent managing tyre degradation. We weren’t competitive enough this weekend, so we had to work ahead of Austria to find better performance.

Mike Krack, Team Principal:

It was a frustrating weekend for the team, but not entirely unexpected. It was a race to forget at a track that exposed our known weaknesses. We understand the areas to remedy but must be patient, as they won’t come overnight.

Lance and Fernando did the best with what we gave them today. I want to thank the fans for their support this week. Rest assured, we are working hard to bring more performances.

Visa Cash App RB driver Daniel Ricciardo finished in 15th place, and his teammate Yuki Tsunoda was 19th at the 2024 Formula 1 Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona.

Daniel Ricciardo

It’s obviously disappointing finishing in P15, but I’m happy with my race and how we managed it as a team with the two stops. I think yesterday I just missed a touch in qualifying, but honestly, today I feel like I maximised it with a good race. We managed the tyres and pushed when we needed to, so unfortunately, I think we just didn’t have more to show this weekend. There’s certainly lots to learn from weekends like this. We take a few little positives and a few more things to work on because we seem to be missing something with the new package. It’s a quick turnaround, so we’ll work on it tonight, trying to understand more in preparation for Austria next week.

Yuki Tsunoda

It was a tough race, in which I struggled. The handling of the car was definitely not easy, and I did not feel as comfortable as I normally do. Something wasn’t quite right, and we’ll analyse everything that happened to understand what did not work well and come back stronger in Austria.

Laurent Mekies – Team Principal

We came here with high hopes for the upgrades that everyone back in the factory has worked so hard to design and produce as part of our aggressive development strategy. Unfortunately, right from the start of Free Practice we were lacking pace in every session. There is no point denying this was a poor weekend for us and although the gaps were very small, we’re not going to make excuses for the fact we just weren’t competitive. Given our starting positions, it would have required some unusual circumstances – rain, a safety car – but the race was pretty linear and while both drivers did their best, we leave Spain with nothing to show for our efforts. Looking at the positives, we did a lot of tests across both cars to acquire as much data as possible. Now, our whole group faces a stern test to try and make some progress in the very few days available until we are back on track at the Red Bull Ring. It’s a very long season, so there are bound to be some tough weekends. We just have to put this one behind us, we must not get downhearted but instead, look ahead and focus on fighting back immediately in a few days’ time in Austria.

MoneyGram Haas F1 Team finished with Nico Hulkenberg 11th and Kevin Magnussen 17th at the 2024 Formula 1 Spanish Grand Prix, Round 10 of the FIA Formula 1 World Championship, held Sunday at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

Kevin Magnussen

Ayao Komatsu, Team Principal

Neither Alex nor Logan could build on a disappointing Saturday, as the Grand Prix brought little joy amidst difficult circumstances in Barcelona. After changing his power unit overnight under Parc fermé, Alex started from the pit lane, promoting Logan to P19 on the grid.

Alex also took the opportunity to adopt an alternative strategy, starting on medium tyres while the rest of the field began on softs. That meant he could run two stints on the quicker soft tyre, which allowed him to get past Logan and finish above Tsunoda – but there was precious little further joy beyond that. Both drivers performed disciplinedly and consistently, but the characteristics of the Circuit Catalunya-Barcelona did not suit the FW46 on this occasion.

Alex Albon

Logan Sargeant

Esteban started from P8 on Used Softs and finished P10: Pit Stops on Lap 13 for New Mediums, Lap 37 for New Hards. Fastest Lap: 1min 18.982secs. Pierre started from P7 on Used Softs and finished P9: Pit Stops on Lap 14 for New Mediums, Lap 38 for New Hards. Fastest Lap: 1min 19.045secs.

Esteban Ocon

Getting both cars in the points for a second consecutive Grand Prix was good. It was a challenging race for us with car balance and some tricky stints, but nevertheless, we managed to bring the car home inside the top ten again, and that’s satisfying. In the end, it was close with Nico [Hülkenberg], but we could maintain pace and get the final point on merit on track. We have things to analyse, such as why the car felt harder to drive in race conditions as I was sliding quite a lot. Even so, we were much more competitive this weekend and came out of it with a good reward. We aim to continue our points run in Austria next weekend, with two opportunities to score points with Sprint.

Pierre Gasly

That was our best race of the season so far as a team, so on that front, I am very happy with today. We had a strong Qualifying on Saturday, which set us up for a good result in ninth place today. We executed the race well with the two-stop strategy and managed each stint well. We almost had eighth place and only missed out on the last lap, but I gave it my all. Even so, I’m happy with such a strong race where we battled two fast cars – the McLaren early on and then the Red Bull at the end – so that’s positive for us. We must understand why the package was strong here and take these learnings going forward. We are progressing in a good direction; that’s three points-scoring finishes in a row, and we must keep that going!

Bruno Famin – Team Principal

It’s pleasing to have both cars at the points here in Spain again and to score at the last three Grand Prix as a team. It’s a positive trend, which we must keep continuing. We were better at this track and must analyse the reasons for this to keep improving our overall package. The race was a tough two-stop for both cars. The two drivers did well, especially in tyre, energy, and fuel management. Next is the Sprint weekend in Austria, where we aim to continue our positive run inside the points.

KICK Sauber F1 Team fought fiercely in the Spanish Grand Prix, with Zhou Guanyu pushing to 13th place and Valtteri Bottas crossing the line 16th. Both drivers had solid races after a weekend of progress, with a much improved qualifying performance yesterday, allowing the team to be in the mix for the positions just outside the points.

The impetus of this step forward will need to be harnessed to create the momentum necessary to push into the top ten as the team heads to the following events in this summer triple-header, with the Austrian Grand Prix next weekend and Silverstone in two weeks.

Valtteri Bottas

We opted to split strategies today and went for an aggressive one. The feeling on the soft compound was quite okay at first, as we thought that could have been today’s best tyre, but unfortunately, that turned out not to be the case, as they quickly began to degrade. We were forced to an early stop, and the last stint was too long – as I also had to do some tyre management and couldn’t use our natural pace. As a positive to bring home from this weekend, our overall performance this weekend was in a better place compared to recent events, as seen with Zhou, who ended up in thirteenth place – which is good to see. We made some decent progress this weekend but still need to do more. Looking ahead to Austria, the track layout will be different, but we’ll hopefully be in the mix again with an excellent qualifying performance: it will be a Sprint event, so getting the feeling right from the start will be essential.

Zhou Guanyu

We had a good race today compared to the last couple of events. We were pretty intense for most of the day – I hadn’t expected to be fighting with the Haas – and the feeling is that we have definitely made a step forward. The only blot is lap one, where I tried to go on the outside to gain some places but nearly lost it on the gravel: still, we were able to recover, and I feel that, on a race where everyone finished, P13 was the most we could get. I am happy we made a step forward; it feels like a bit of a breakthrough, not perhaps in terms of results but in terms of feeling with the car: I felt a lot more comfortable; I could put the car where I wanted and control it as I used to. It’s a big step and motivates us all to keep working and closing the gap. We can continue on this trajectory and get back to the points soon. We are much closer to where we were at the start of the season when we were near the top of the midfield, so I look forward to being back on track in Austria.

Alessandro Alunni Bravi, Team Representative

Today’s conditions were challenging for all competitors, as the track conditions changed dramatically from Friday, making all references on race simulations moot. Tyre degradation remained a question mark, creating some engaging scenarios for the strategy: we tried our best to support our drivers and allow them to make up ground with two different plans, swapping their places to give them the best fighting chance. However, Valtteri’s second stint on softs saw more degradation than we expected, which meant we had to call him in for an earlier stop, and that made his final stint on hard tyres too long, his race pace on those tyres not allowing him to challenge those on mediums. Starting in the 15th, Zhou executed a perfect race and was lapping strongly until the end of the day, even though Alonso turned out too hard to keep behind. We made a step forward in qualifying, but there’s still something to find on Sunday to be as competitive as we need to be to score points, even in a race with no retirements, Safety Cars or anything that reshuffles the pack. Of course, we finished ahead of Williams and RB, but this cannot be our objective: to be in the top ten. We need to keep improving in all fields from Austria already, as there will be opportunities to be taken, and we need to be the ones doing that.