22nd May 2022, 22:35 | Written by Keith Collantine

Soaring temperatures, high tyre temperatures and a hard compound no one wanted to touch pushed drivers towards three-stop strategies in the Spanish Grand Prix.

Advert | Become a Supporter & go ad-free Even Sergio Perez, who is renowned for his skill in extending the life of a set of tyres, couldn’t make a two-stop strategy work. His pace began to drop in his third stint and Red Bull brought him in for another set of rubber.

Advert | Become a Supporter & go ad-free

As the teams saw the likelihood of a multi-stop race coming, almost every car was sent to the grid on the soft rubber compound. Lewis Hamilton’s medium-shod Mercedes was the exception, but we never got to see how that would have worked for him as he tangled Kevin Magnussen on lap one, both incurred punctures and had to pit.

How Hamilton might have fared without that setback is one of the fascinating unanswered questions of this race. Another is how the fight for victory between Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc would have unfolded had it not been for the Red Bull driver’s early off-track excursion, and the Ferrari’s power unit problem.

Gallery: 2022 Spanish Grand Prix in picturesVerstappen’s turn four off cost him eight seconds on lap nine, and more afterwards as he found himself stuck behind George Russell. Carlos Sainz Jnr made the same mistake as Verstappen two laps, also blaming the wind, but lost around seven second more.

Verstappen was two seconds behind leader Leclerc before his error, but had just begun to slip back from the Ferrari. Afterwards Leclerc said he was encouraged that his Ferrari’s tyre degradation, which had been a weakness in recent races, seemed much improved at the Circuit de Catalunya.

With little to choose between the top two teams on race pace, and Mercedes taking a big step towards joining them, the Spanish Grand Prix gave an encouraging sign the 2022 championship is getting even clsoer.

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

The positions of each driver on every lap. Click name to highlight, right-click to reset. Toggle drivers using controls below:

>> Find out more and sign up

The gaps between each driver on every lap compared to the leader’s average lap time. Very large gaps omitted. Scroll to zoom, drag to pan and right-click to reset. Toggle drivers using controls below:

All the lap times by the drivers (in seconds, very slow laps excluded). Scroll to zoom, drag to pan and toggle drivers using the control below:

>> Find out more and sign up

Each driver’s fastest lap:

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

The tyre strategies for each driver:

>> Find out more and sign up

How long each driver’s pit stops took:

Q&A: Kubica ‘shocked’ by ‘completely different’ Alfa Romeo in SpainHow heat and traffic trouble left F1 fans fuming after the Spanish Grand PrixMercedes not yet certain their porpoising problem has “disappeared”Sticking to budget cap “pretty much impossible” due to rising costs – McLarenRicciardo hoping to find an explanation for Spanish GP pace deficit to NorrisBrowse all 2022 Spanish Grand Prix articles

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

Promoted content from around the web | Become a RaceFans Supporter to hide this ad and others

Ferrari could have, should have, would have, had they not shot themselves in the foot with rookie mistakes and reliability issues.

which open the door for Mercedes as the third wheel to slow RB’s march towards a second successive championship win.

Tyre wear was higher than usual this race, maybe something to do with the high track temperatures?

If you watched the sport in the early 2010’s, they used to at times do 4 pit stops.

look at hams pace compared to max oh what could of been

I can only imagine Bottas’s pit crew took an early flight home. When it was clear that Sainz and Hamilton would catch him he should have been brought in. He lost so much time nursing his tyres he couldn’t even catch Hamilton’s ailing car. That 32 lap stint could have been 20 and 12 and he would have passed Hamilton.

James Neutron (@phillyspur) 23rd May 2022, 0:19

Funny that no one has really talked about the fact that Lewis actually effectively ran a 2-stop race.

Yup i keep saying this i reckon he would of got p2 today

If he’d not started on the wrong tyres and collided with Magnussen.

But if he hadn’t done that he’d have been in a different battle, made different strategic decisions and things would have looked different.

Just realized that Lewis’ tyres were only 3 laps younger than Carlos’ but Lewis was able to overtake him on track (before Lewis’ late race back off). That is super encouraging for Mercedes

Great race by Lewis in particular. Couldn’t follow him much as it was hectic at the front of the field and I felt a shock George victory was in the offing. But he reduced a 50 second gap to his team-mate at end of lap 2 to 12 second gap by end lap 62 while effectively running a 2 stopper while George ran a 3 stopper. See his lap times from 38 to 47, he is virtually matching George while having 14 lap older mediums!!

George probably took a lot of life out of his tyres today in trying to fight faster cars.

That being said, Lewis had fantastic pace.

Just adding to this, they both had different race setup which Merc was experimenting, looks like they are finding some answers on how to unlock the car’s potential.

Some if’s and buts for fun…….. Lewis on lap 1 was 26 sec behind the leader, eventually finishing 53 secs behind Ver. Now if the ‘shunt’ never took place he’d have been 27 secs behind, if there was no cooling issue he’d have been 14 secs up the road finishing 13 secs behind – Same as Perez.

He also pitted lap 1 so add another 30 secs. And he basically had to go 2 stops

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

All comments are moderated. See the Comment Policy and FAQ for more.

© 2022 Collantine Media Ltd | About RaceFans