Max Verstappen Dominates the 2023 F1 Spanish Grand Prix: Winners and Losers

In the 2023 F1 Round 8 Spanish Grand Prix, Max Verstappen (Red Bull Racing) won the pole position, all-around lead, and fastest lap at the Barcelona-Catalunya circuit. He continued his relentless march towards the F1 World Champion for the consecutive years. But it wasn’t such a fun day for some of the rivals in the Spanish sun. Here are the ‘winners and losers’ of the Monaco Grand Prix as selected by Formula1.com:

Winner: Max Verstappen After passing Carlos Sainz at the start, Verstappen barely needed to look in his rear-view mirror to change pole position to his fifth win in seven races. And added the fastest lap despite the team warning Verstappen to stop doing it. Because he was given a black and white flag for track limits. It was Verstappen’s 40th win in seven years since his first, and it also happened to be Red Bull’s first race in Spain. Verstappen, who has finished in the top two in every race so far this season and has completed 26 consecutive Grands Prix, now has a 53-point lead in the championship, which means two wins and two. Fastest lap bonus or better. Verstappen Cruising in Spain on Sunday Winner loser: Charles Leclerc It was a weekend to forget for Charles Leclerc. Leclerc finished a painfully low 19th in qualifying for Sunday’s race. It was just a year after he took pole position at the same event. Leclerc had to start from the pitlane as Ferrari made a tweak overnight. His pace looked fine in the final stint, but disappointing results for the rest of the race kept him out of the competition. He finished 11th with his third no-score in seven races of the season, 128 points behind Verstappen in the championship. Leclerc spent most of the race in Spain in the back. Winner: Mercedes Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff believes cool, consistent conditions have helped the team steer the car in the right direction, with the heavily updated car taking its first double podium of the season. achieved. Lewis Hamilton has finished second on his last seven podiums, making it his 11th time at Barcelona. George Russell chased from 12th to take his first podium of 2023, which was unlikely. Together they helped move Mercedes past Aston Martin for second place in the Constructors’ Championship. Winning two podiums was a good harvest for Mercedes as it returned to 2nd place in the constructors’ ranking. Loser: Yuki Tsunoda After fighting for a top 10 finish with a string of impressive overtaking maneuvers, Yuki Tsunoda missed out on several points for the second race in a row. He was handed a five-second time penalty for driving Guanyu Zhou off the track in the battle for ninth heading into Turn 1, dropping him to 12th just after the checkered flag. Winner: Lance Stroll Lance Stroll made the most of Aston Martin team-mate Fernando Alonso’s off-week to finish sixth. Stroll, who had finished outside the points for two consecutive races, surpassed Alonso for the first time this season. Alonso, who moved up from 10th to 7th after the second-half stop, was able to relax in the closing stages after radioing that he would not attack his teammate. Loser: Sergio Pérez Sergio Pérez continued his disappointing form, with a lackluster overall race performance over the weekend and falling further behind Verstappen in the title race. Eliminated in Q2 following a troubled weekend in Monaco, then struggled to advance fast enough in the race to finish fourth. Although Perez recovered to 4th place, it ended up being an incomplete combustion for a car with top-class ability. Winner: Guanyu Zhou Guanyu Zhou followed up his best qualifying performance since the second round in Jeddah with a punchy drive in Barcelona on Sunday afternoon to take his second points finish of the season. The 9th place is comparable to the best result of the 2023 (Australian GP), and the Alfa Romeo team will join the battle for 7th place in the Constructors’ Championship with the same points as Haas. Loser: Fernando Alonso Seventh place wasn’t a bad result for Alonso in 2022, but five podiums in his first six races has raised the bar significantly for him this season. But the Spanish double world champion was unable to work his magic on his beloved home fans, first making a mistake in qualifying that left him eighth on the grid and getting his worst start of the year. In the race, the Aston Martin didn’t look particularly fast on either the soft or the hard, and as a result a podium finish wasn’t realistic. Winner: Alpine Alpine continued its recent run of form, with Esteban Ocon finishing eighth for a third straight top ten finish and Pierre Gasly finishing tenth for the third straight double points finish. The result could have been better if Gasly had not received the two three-place grid penalties for interfering with qualifying. However, a further good run of points has cemented fifth place in the Constructors’ Championship and puts the team well behind the bottom five teams. Loser: Lando Norris Lando Norris had the best qualifying performance of his career in Spain, finishing in third place. However, he remained in that position for just 30 seconds after the start, and as the field froze at the first corner he collided with Hamilton. He was forced to pit to fit a new front wing, which dropped him to the back of the field and left him well out of contention. Norris said after the race that it would have been difficult for him to stay in the points even without that contact, but at least it would have been fun to see him try.