Conclusions from the Spanish Grand Prix

Max Verstappen took the lead of the 2022 Formula 1 World Championship after claiming his third consecutive win in the Spanish Grand Prix, where Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc suffered his first retirement of the season.

Here are our conclusions from Barcelona…

If there was a criticism to be made of Verstappen during his maiden title-winning season in 2021, it was that he needed to pick his battles slightly better and recognise the days when it would be beneficial to settle for second.

After he rejoined from the Turn 4 gravel behind Sergio Perez and George Russell on Lap 9, Leclerc in the lead and already long gone, the Spanish GP felt for all the world like one of those days.

There are few things more frightening in modern F1 than Verstappen as the red mist descends, and as his frustration with Red Bull’s intermittent DRS threatened to boil over – Max spitting his words over the radio, his car flicking sideways on corner exits as he stamped on the throttle – there was an implicit danger that an already difficult race was about to be made much worse.

In such situations – Bahrain, where Verstappen was unleashed to race Leclerc to the point where he locked up heavily into Turn 1, also comes to mind – perhaps there should be a greater emphasis on Red Bull, specifically Verstappen’s race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase, to control his natural aggression.

As Verstappen became increasingly irate behind Russell, there was arguably a moment for them to tell him to take a breath, nurse his tyres and wait for the team to take care of Russell during the stops. Second, after all, was as good as it was going to get.

Then Leclerc stopped, the battle for second became the one for the lead, and just like the dark clouds evaporated.

It was very