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Formula 1 Spanish GP

F1 Spanish GP Live Commentary and Updates - Race day

Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes W12

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Penalty

Gasly has been given a five-second time penalty for starting out of position on the grid. The AlphaTauri driver, who is currently P13, had his front wheels ahead of his grid slot so he's got no defence.

Stroll on a roll! At the restart he keeps it pinned around the outside at Turn 4 against Alonso to grab the inside line at Turn 5 and take 10th place.

No opportunity for Hamilton to get a run on Verstappen, as the Red Bull broke the tow on that restart.
Green flag
Verstappen pulls the trigger and gets us back underway on Lap 11.
Pit stop

Williams also opted to pit both Russell and Latifi under the safety car period. They return ahead of Giovinazzi who has effectively lost two places due to that pitstop problem.

Quote
"Have a think about what we can do different to the other cars," Bottas suggests over the radio.
Safety car
The safety car's about to come in.

Ah, panic for Alfa Romeo, as Giovinazzi pits but one of his fresh tyres has a puncture. That means the mechanics have to scramble for a different set and Giovinazzi is stuck stationary waiting to be serviced.

Safety car

Tsunoda's car conks out mid-corner and gives the Japanese driver little option but to pull over. With his car in a tricky spot to recover, the full safety car is required.

Safety car
That'll be a safety car.
Bottas has another tilt at Leclerc, but he still can't quite get through the Ferrari.
Yellow flag
Tsunoda has come to a halt at Turn 10. "Engine stopped, engine stopped," he says over AlphaTauri team radio before starting to get out of his car.
Schumacher is now coming under pressure from the Williams pair, with Russell getting a good view of the Haas rear wing, but he can't find a way through yet.
Perez is now on Ricciardo's tail, looking to elevate himself up to fifth. He can't quite challenge the McLaren at the moment.
Bottas has a look at Leclerc into Turn 1 with DRS, but doesn't quite have the minerals to pull off a move on the Ferrari. He will need to get on with it, because he's losing a lot of time to the front duo.
On lap five Tsunoda has got back ahead of Schumacher in the battle of the top rookies. The AlphaTauri driver is back up to 16th place.
Stopwatch
Hamilton's closing back in, and has just posted a 1m22.938s to eat at Verstappen's gap.
Breaking news
Gasly is under investigation for starting out of position on the grid. It wasn't caught on the TV cameras so we'll need another look at it.
Leclerc pulled a cracking move on Bottas, taking the outside line for Turn 3 and edging past the second Mercedes.
Verstappen's got a really nice lead out of the box, 1.7s clear of Hamilton as the two have 3s over Leclerc.
Further back Mick Schumacher had a super start for Haas getting up to 16th ahead of Tsunoda and Russell. Raikkonen, on the mediums, gained three places on lap one to move up to P14.

Clean starts from all of the midfield fighters, with Ocon and Sainz losing out to Ricciardo and Perez. Ricciardo is fifth from Perez, while Ocon is fighting off pressure from Sainz.

Verstappen gave Hamilton the option of hell or high water, and the Mercedes driver had to dip onto the run-off. Leclerc, meanwhile, has scampered past Bottas for third!
Lights out
And we're away! That's a great start from Verstappen, who grabs the inside and BLASTS past Hamilton for the lead at turn 1!
The cars line up, ready for the start...
Green flag
And the formation lap hath begun.
Breaking news
It's almost a full house of soft tyres - only Raikkonen bucks the trend to take on mediums to begin with.
Didn't get to go to Barcelona this year for testing, but the upside of that is not having to pay extortionate fees for media centre wifi. Or having to dice with a lukewarm burger if you didn't have time to throw together lunch...#firstworldproblems
Are you ready? Then we'll begin...in five minutes.
10 minutes until lights out at Barcelona.
We've got a risk of rain of 20% - so the hopes of rain in Spain will fall mainly down the drain...
The anthems of Spain and Catalonia are being played - with just a quintet of players, they've got a sparse but ethereal quality to them. I liked that, personally.
With the cloud cover, the track temp's at 33 degrees C, which is a little cooler compared to the rest of the weekend.
Toto Wolff has predicted a one-stop race, "unless something happens behind us". Given the tightness of turns 1 and 2, it's not out of the question...
Breaking news
Sainz says he's worried about a repeat of Portugal, where he ailed with tyre wear towards the end of the race: https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/sainz-ferrari-still-worried-about-tyre-degradation-in-spain/6505467/
Valtteri Bottas and Charles Leclerc locked out row two, with Esteban Ocon putting in a lovely lap to grab fifth - alongside Carlos Sainz Jr.
So, let's recap yesterday. Sir Lewis Hamilton, Collector of 100 Poles got his, erm, 100th pole. Verstappen starts alongside him on the front row.
Rain
There are grey clouds hovering over the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya - and a few spots of rain abound. We're not getting our hopes up too much, though...

By: Jake Boxall-Legge, Haydn Cobb, Tom Howard

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