How Hamilton got his mojo back and Vettel lost his

Lewis Hamilton's second consecutive victory could not have been more different to his first of 2018. While his latest triumph in the Spanish Grand Prix was worth the same 25 points his Azerbaijan win was, the Mercedes driver valued it more highly. And rightly so, for last Sunday he was at his imperious best.

This was vintage Hamilton of the kind we did not see in Bahrain, China or Azerbaijan. The man himself was delighted with being back on form, a very different feeling from the Baku "lottery" win that made him feel sheepish on the podium. And the reason for this return to form? Confidence.

That's not the confidence that the driver brings to the car, but the kind that flows in the other direction. And while it might seem that Hamilton claiming pole position by 0.040 seconds from Valtteri Bottas was the turning point, it wasn't until the race that we saw him in the sweet spot.

As he pointed out, it looked easy, but it wasn't. And his drive ensured he stayed clear of the kind of strategic vagaries, misfortunes and misadventures that stalked Mercedes earlier in the season.

"In Melbourne, I was really comfortable in the car, with the balance," said Hamilton after taking his 64th F1 victory. "And since then I just didn't have the confidence to attack, to lean on the car, to have the rear particularly where I wanted it.

"For whatever reason, I still didn't have that yesterday, it was a very nervous, snappy car throughout qualifying. It was better than it had been in the past, but still not great.

"And today we just happened to get the right wing setting for the race and the car was a little bit nicer to drive, more of a normal balance.

"I was a bit amazed to see the pace difference that I had to others, plus I was able to look after my tyres a lot more than the guys behind me. They were running out of tyres, the front-left, and I was able to look after mine."

That's a pretty succinct summary of Hamilton's Sunday. From pole position, he comfortably held the lead, albeit with the loss of rear gunner Bottas, who was passed around the outside of the first corner by Sebastian Vettel.

"I was a bit amazed to see the pace difference that I had to others" Lewis Hamilton

But Hamilton only made it as far as Turn 6 before the safety car was deployed to clear up the mess caused by Romain Grosjean spinning in Turn 3 after reacting to Haas team-mate Kevin Magnussen's wobble ahead. That was unfortunate, but Grosjean keeping the rear tyres lit and booting the car from the outside to the inside of the circuit was a stupid decision and led to both Nico Hulkenberg and Pierre Gasly collecting him.

When the race restarted at the end of lap six, Hamilton immediately built a lead of 1.468s by catching Vettel out at the restart. The Ferrari driver was still completing the Turn 13 right-hander that leads into the chicane when Hamilton launched, and Vettel kicked out the rear as he responded.

"It was tricky because everybody's tyres were quite cold, so as the car in front you know when you're going to accelerate," said Vettel.

"Initially, I was quite close but then I nearly lost the car going into the chicane and that's why I had quite a big gap. I knew if I was close I might have a chance, but there was nothing wrong with the restart."

In the 10 laps after the restart and before Vettel started his in-lap, Hamilton had a pace advantage of 0.654s per lap. That was on comparable tyres, for all of the frontrunners started on soft rubber. When Vettel peeled into the pits, he was 8.192s behind Hamilton and emerged, now medium-shod, behind the Haas of Magnussen.

Third-placed Bottas was 1.352s behind Vettel when the Ferrari dived into the pits. With Vettel taking a little time to get his tyres up to temperature, Mercedes left Bottas out for two more laps. This was a good move, as Bottas gained around two seconds on Vettel during those laps.

Unfortunately, the right-rear wheel was slow coming off in the stop, costing around 1.5s, meaning Magnussen and Vettel blasted past him as he emerged. In the process, Vettel breezed past the Haas with a little help from the DRS.

Vettel's surprisingly early stop, and Bottas responding to it in a way that should have got him ahead but didn't, meant that both were potentially on a two-stop strategy. This brought the one-stopping Red Bulls into contention for the podium.

Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo ran fifth and sixth in the early stages, and had fallen back from the top three behind Kimi Raikkonen. Ricciardo survived running wide and taking a bite of the gravel exiting the ultra-fast Campsa right-hander just after the restart to track Raikkonen and Verstappen during the first stint.

The unfortunate Raikkonen was the first to be removed from the equation. He did not follow Vettel's early-stop strategy and stayed out, running second just over 17s behind Hamilton when he lost power near the end of lap 24 of 66 and toured back to the pits. Given he described himself as "pretty easy with my grip" he expected to complete the race on a one-stopper and the way things panned out, Raikkonen would likely have been on the podium.

With Hamilton still circulating comfortably up front and concerns about the beating the left-front Pirelli was taking on the long loads of Barcelona, Mercedes called its race leader in at the end of lap 25, temporarily dropping him behind Verstappen.

"We were worried about structural issues on the tyre," said team boss Toto Wolff. "The left-front was suffering everywhere, not so much on Lewis's car, but we saw that on Sebastian's car and when we pitted Valtteri that the rubber was down to zero. We took a precautionary stop with Lewis."

Ricciardo and Verstappen eventually pitted for mediums on laps 33 and 34 respectively, restoring order. Hamilton reclaimed the lead ahead of Vettel and Bottas, with Ricciardo and Verstappen behind.

Then came a curveball. Esteban Ocon's Force India, already delayed by a lengthy pitstop caused by some damaged brake duct parts adhering themselves to the inside of the wheel and the axle, slowed with smoke billowing out the back of it. Even though Ocon parked out of the way on the short run between Turns 4 and 5, the virtual safety car was deployed. Vettel came in for a new set of mediums, dropping to fourth behind Bottas and Verstappen.

"We couldn't make the tyres last," said Vettel. "If you look from the outside, it's easy, but inside the car we are going through the tyres too quickly and therefore we were not able to stay out for another 25 laps. In the end, with the freshest set, I wasn't able to attack until the end."

The Ferrari was clearly harder on its front-left than the Mercedes. To make the finish Vettel would have had to complete 49 laps on his mediums, two more than the longest stint we saw in the race by Bottas.

But given Raikkonen was aiming for a one-stopper, could greater management could have allowed Vettel to do it, maintaining track position and giving him a shot at keeping Bottas and Verstappen behind? You have to wonder if it was worth a shot.

As for Bottas, he had a battle to keep the tyres alive once Mercedes realised he could extend his second stint to make the finish. But this resulted in a tricky balancing act.

"The gap to Lewis was huge, but there have been many things that have affected that and so I'm happy and I know that the speed is there" Valtteri Bottas

"I saw the tyres after the race and it was down to canvas," said Bottas. "It felt like when I was trying to save it that on the next three corners I had no grip because I lost so much temperature. And when there is no surface left on the tyre it is so easy to lose temperature.

"I was just trying to keep it alive even though it was risky because when there is nothing left and you really push through Turn 3 and Turn 9, there is always the risk of really damaging the tyre and having a puncture or something. But I felt that was the way to go."

Even so, he didn't lose too much time to Hamilton, who had stopped six laps later. Bottas claimed the 20.593s gap to Hamilton at the finish exaggerated the gap between them, which was fair.

In what was a race of three phases for Hamilton, Bottas lost 0.684s per lap in the green-flag running before his pitstop, adding up to around 10s. This was thanks to being stuck behind Vettel. His early stop, combined with a little time lost behind Magnussen, increased that gap to almost 15s. Between that and the VSC being activated, the gap stayed at a similar level, but on the run to the finish Bottas lost 0.236s per lap.

"The gap to Lewis was huge, but there have been many things that have affected that and so I'm happy and I know that the speed is there," was Bottas's summary.

He was never under threat from behind, and already had a big advantage over Verstappen even before the Red Bull driver clipped the rear of Lance Stroll's Williams just before the VSC was deactivated and suffered damage to the left-side front wing endplate. Fortunately, the wing was undamaged structurally so there wasn't a massive loss of downforce and lap times did not suffer hugely.

"I was trying to be as close as I could be, just on the positive side [of the times for each sector that must not be dropped below under the VSC] and I was quite close behind Stroll," said Verstappen.

"I felt that he braked a bit and I was really close, so I just clipped him. Luckily, it was only the outside bit of the wing so I could continue, I just had a bit more understeer in high-speed corners.

"I kept going and felt a bit more understeer in Turns 3 and 9 and was maybe braking a bit deeper into hairpins, but it was not too bad to be honest. It was a little bit slower, but I don't think it affected me too much."

That was underlined by Vettel, on mediums seven laps younger, who did not get close enough to challenge him. Just 2.5s behind Verstappen when the VSC was removed, for most of the rest of the race their lap times were similar, with Vettel inching about six-hundredths closer each lap.

The eventual gap was only 0.7s, but that was exaggerated by the fact Verstappen could afford to finish with two relatively sedate laps.

Ricciardo was not a factor, as he had looped his Red Bull on the power at Turn 10 when the VSC ended. Fortunately, he had enough of a gap to Magnussen, who had a superb weekend and was a clear best-of-the-rest on his way to sixth, not to come under threat. And he showed his pace late on with fastest lap.

Up front, Hamilton stroked it home and completed a resounding victory. After a difficult start to the season, Mercedes was back and it was clear that this was partly thanks to doing a much better job with getting the tyres into the right temperature window and keeping them there.

There were hints of conspiracy, largely fuelled by comments from the Ferrari drivers, that this was due to Pirelli's decision to reduce the tread depth by 0.4mm (in the vicinity of 10%) as a result of the blistering that occurred in testing at a resurfaced track for which race pace was increased by 4-5s per lap. Vettel suggested the compounds were harder, but this was not the case.

"The compound is exactly the same, the construction is exactly the same, the difference is the thickness," confirmed Pirelli's Mario Isola.

"I listened to the drivers' comments, of course, but it's difficult to explain from the technical side because if the supersoft was, let's say, excluded during the race because the general feeling was it was too soft. The problem is on the other side."

It may be that this inadvertently played into the hands of Mercedes thanks to making it slightly more difficult to overheat the tyres, a regular problem in qualifying, but the underlying pace of the car was always likely to shine through in Spain.

It's true Mercedes seemed better able to get the supersofts working, helping its slender advantage over Ferrari of just over a tenth in qualifying, perhaps dealing better with the tyres having a little less compliance on turn-in.

But given Mercedes was faster across all tyre compounds throughout the weekend, not to mention the fact Ferrari was among the teams that had struggled with blistering in testing, this was no plot to help the Silver Arrows.

None of this mattered to Hamilton, who turned in his best race drive of 2018 to strengthen his lead in the drivers' championship.

"It's the greatest feeling to come here and have that kind of performance and a convincing win," he said. "Anybody who has a win wants to do it that way, and it's definitely a great feeling. Not every win feels as special as that one does."