Lewis takes a heady win for the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team in Barcelona

May 9, 2021

* Lewis made a bold strategy call from the team to claim his 98th win in F1 after bravely deciding to play early for his second stop on lap 42.

* Valtteri’s race was hampered after being penned in to be behind Charles Leclerc at the start. However, the Finn made an impressive recovery run to get P3 and move up to third place in the drivers’ standings.

* Today was the 100th victory from pole position for the Mercedes F1 Team and thus the second team to do so.

* Lewis’ win was his fifth straight win at the Spanish Grand Prix. Ayrton Senna is the only other driver to have five straight wins at a Monaco Grand Prix.

* Lewis (94 points) leads the drivers’ standings 14 points ahead of Max Verstappen (80 points) and Valtteri (47) in third place.

* The Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team (141 points) leads Red Bull (112 points) with 29 points in the constructors’ championship.

* INEOS Chairman Sir Jim Ratcliffe accepted the Constructors Trophy on behalf of the team.

Lewis Hamilton
What a day! It was another remarkable job for the whole team this weekend and it’s so nice to see the fans here again. I even saw a couple of UK flags in the crowd and I really missed that! I feel great like I could do this all over again, all the training is clearly paying off!

It was really close to the start, there was a lot of rubber on the right side of the grid and Max got off to a really good start. I then went out hunting and was close to Max for so long in the early stages of the race, and I feared I wouldn’t be able to keep the tires in the dirty air. It looked like a long way back after the second stop – it was about 20 seconds before Max – but it was a really bold call from the team. I was really at odds, it felt like I had the shot to make the move before Max stopped, but we just have trust between us in the team and it was a great call.

Valtteri Bottas
Losing that position to Charles at Turn 3 on the first lap affected the first stint of my race. I was hoping for more today, but that made it difficult. My overall pace wasn’t bad – a bit of a shame we couldn’t finish higher, but at least I managed to get on the podium. I’m never happy to settle for third place, I’m here to win but it was a good day for the team to get more solid points. Monaco will be a unique challenge in two weeks and I’m looking forward to it.

Toto Wolff
I think we had a fast car but if you lose position on the first lap you will be on your heel. For Red Bull, as the car in front of him, it was difficult to make the right strategic decision. In second place, it’s easier when you have the gap to make the call we made today.

If you look at qualifying there were three cars within a tenth, you never know who will be in front. I hope it stays that way until the end of the season – it’s exactly what the sport needs and we’re enjoying this fight.

Today was a great job by the team at home. It was our Head of Race Strategy, Rosie’s last race before maternity leave, and I’m so proud. It was a bold move, and when you see the void open for more than 20 seconds, you think there is no way you can catch up. We saw that Max’s tires suffered more than ours and we were able to stay close. The planner actually showed that we would get Max in one lap, but we got there with four!

The guys and girls on the team do a really good job, even on the days when we lose, we learn and the attitude is right. If our car isn’t fast enough, we can always extrapolate good performance. We never rest, never have a sense of entitlement – in two weeks it can swing the other way and then it will be a weekend to study. The atmosphere was fantastic and I really have to take my hat off the group of strategists led by James and the whole group in Brackley. You are just awesome.

Andrew Shovlin
Congratulations to Lewis on another well-deserved win! A good day at work for the team and drivers but it was a lot of effort to get back to where we started. Both drivers dropped positions off the line; We didn’t have a particular problem on Lewis’ side, he just lost a bit in the clear and ended up on the left side where you can be pushed a long way. Valtteri was penned a little with Lewis at Turn 3 and lost to Leclerc on the outside. We knew overtaking on the track with tires of the same age was going to be a long shot, but at least we could sit close enough to Max to force him early and with Valtteri to undercut Charles.

When we got into the race we thought a one-stop would be a lot easier to do than it turned out, but I don’t think we were alone with that attitude. This is mainly due to the short sessions that leave less time to do our homework, but at least the alternative strategy for the win was set as many cars ended up failing.

Our pace has been pretty solid this weekend, although we still seem relatively better on long runs than on the individual lap, and Monaco is mostly about one-lap performance. It’s always a challenging weekend to get it right, but it’s a great race and we look forward to returning there after the gap in 2020.