Spanish GP Takeaways: Verstappen, Norris in a league of their own
F1 NewsWednesday, 26 June 2024 at 07:31
Max Verstappen and Lando Norris were competing in a league of their own over the 2024 Spanish Grand Prix weekend the former winning the latter claiming pole.
With all the changes in the Formula 1 pecking order from race to race, starting Miami, when it became clear that Red Bull and Verstappen would not walk away with this year's Championship, there was a lot of emphasis on the outcome of the Spanish GP.
The reason is that any F1 car that is fast around the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya should be fast everywhere as a rule of thumb, and while there were some surprises - Alpine doing so well, Ferrari flopping and VCARB dropping all the way down the order, there were some conclusions from the race.
Mercedes' progress seemed genuine, while Ferrari's upgrades failed to deliver, which also applies on VCARB, so let's have a closer look in our takeaways from the 2024 Spanish Grand Prix.
Red Bull Racing and McLaren in F1, the rest in F2?
It was no surprise that Red Bull were strong in Barcelona, maybe not as strong as everyone expected, but from the start of the weekend, they did not seem to be struggling as badly as in Monaco for example.
But what made Red Bull probably look ordinary was McLaren's pace especially with Norris who snatched pole from Verstappen by a negligible 0.020s.
However next best, Lewis Hamilton, was over three tenths off the pace as he led the chasing pack behind Norris and Verstappen the bottom eight in Q3 covered by less than a second.
The pace gap was also evident in the race as Verstappen, who won, was only over two seconds ahead of Norris, with Hamilton in third over 15s away from his fellow Briton.
So while Mercedes definitely improved, that was not enough to threaten Red Bull and McLaren and with Ferrari going AWOL with their new upgraded SF-24 we still need some time to know who is third best especially as Fred Vasseur partly blamed Ferrari's woes in Barcelona on not optimizing the new upgrade, something he claimed the team will do in Austria.
But what is clear is that the third best team is quite a bit away from the top two, unless Ferrari deliver a miracle turnaround in Austria, and for that Red Bull and McLaren seem to be in a different class compared to their rivals.
It's worth mentioning that this applies on Verstappen and Norris only as they seem to be getting the best out of their respective cars as Sergio Perez and Oscar Piastri languished down the order all weekend, unable to match their front-running teammates.
Fireworks between Verstappen and Norris from now on?
That fight between Verstappen and Norris at the start of the Spanish GP was epic, the latter's defense as hard as it may legally get while the former put his foot down, grass or no grass, Max was not backing off.
Off track the pair are supposedly buddies but once they have their helmets on, the both are stubborn and ruthless, and will not shy away from fighting to the last millimeter of the track, and with their cars now so close, matters will get interesting between them.
The exchange between Verstappen and Norris in the post race press conference was tasty, the McLaren driver insisting he gave the Red Bull ace enough space, while the latter joked his rival needed glasses or a bigger mirror.
Verstappen was quite fair even admitting he would have done the same to Norris had he been on the defense, and we believe him.
Regardless, we can only hope that these two continue battling for the rest of the season as it will be a pleasure to watch, Verstappen at the top of his game making all the difference when Red Bull need him to do, while Norris is slowly progressing into becoming a genuine challenger for wins, and soon F1 Titles.
Shouldn't an upgrade improve the car?
Two teams that brought major upgrade packages in Barcelona were Ferrari and VCARB, but the new parts fired back.
Ferrari did not get their revised SF-24 working well and were outright beaten by Mercedes and while VCARB were previously Q3 contenders with Yuki Tsunoda in particular, they were nowhere near as good last weekend, out of Q1 in qualifying and out of the points in the race.
Of course there is the excuse that Ferrari and VCARB need to understand their new packages more but with the Spanish GP being the first race in a triple header, and with the upcoming race weekend in Austria being a Sprint format, making improvements in the space of a few days may prove challenging.
At least Ferrari and VCARB are not as bad as Aston Martin who have upgraded their car before Barcelona and went backwards in a worrying pattern. The same happened to the Green outfit in 2023 as they seem to struggle with their development program.
Now Aston Martin are a relatively young team still growing, and VCARB have also undergone major changes and are not a big team anyway, but none of that applies to Ferrari.
So while we might excuse Aston Martin and VCARB, we cannot give Ferrari a break. Granted it may be hard to fine tune a new car upgrade in one race weekend, at least they should not drop back that much.
Austria is just a few days away, and we will see what happens there.
Spanish GP Quick hits
- What a pass by George Russell on Verstappen and Norris on the opening lap, he got a great launch, managed his braking masterfully and went smoothly between the other cars to take the lead. His pace meant he wouldn't keep P1 for long, but credit goes to him on such a start, especially when we keep in mind that Russell is sometimes error-prone in close racing conditions.
The future Mercedes team leader should show us more of this... - How did Alpine get so good so fast? They qualified in the top ten and finished in the points with both cars. Is it the Flavio Briatore effect? Just kidding.
- Speaking of Briatore, it was disappointing to see him welcomed back into the F1 paddock as if nothing happened with everyone suddenly developing short memories.
Remember a few months ago when F1 was going through the Christian Horner scandal, an internal team issue to be honest, but everyone was calling for transparency and integrity and ... whatever.
But having Briatore back, a proven cheat was suddenly ok, and to make matters worse the Italian himself did not show any remorse.
But the sad fact is that the new Alpine advisor is here to stay for now, and we will have to deal with his presence which is another reminder for us romantics who love F1 for the speed, the cutting edge technology, the best drivers in the best cars... It reminds us the spanking clean image the sport is trying to project is far from that.
Nevertheless, we keep the faith...
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