The Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix delivered Scuderia Ferrari HP's first victory of the season thanks to Lewis Hamilton, who produced a flawless performance to secure his maiden win at the wheel of a Ferrari. Remarkably, it came at the very circuit where the great Michael Schumacher claimed his first victory in red. Today's success is Ferrari's 249th Formula 1 win, Hamilton's 106th career victory, and makes him the 41st driver to win a Grand Prix for the Maranello marque. Unfortunately, this outstanding result was tempered by the disappointment of Charles Leclerc's retirement. The Monegasque driver was forced to stop just a few laps from the finish while fighting near the front of the field due to a reliability issue.
The race. Hamilton started from the front row on used Soft tyres and held onto second place at the start. Leclerc, who lined up tenth on new Medium tyres, made rapid progress through the field, climbing to seventh by the end of the opening lap. The race featured differing strategies and particularly strong pace from the SF-26. Hamilton built his victory on perfect tyre management and an excellent strategy, supported by flawless work from the team during his three pit stops. The key moment came on lap 40, when Fernando Alonso stopped on track, triggering a Virtual Safety Car. This allowed Hamilton to make his final pit stop in effectively half the usual time while retaining the lead ahead of the two Mercedes drivers. Once out front, Lewis made the most of having fresher tyres than his rivals, setting a pace that nobody could match. Up until his retirement, Leclerc had driven an aggressive recovery race. After breaking into the top six in the early stages, the Monegasque demonstrated a competitive pace that would have allowed him to secure a valuable haul of points. Unfortunately, with four laps remaining, a hydraulic issue forced him to retire.
A short break before Austria. Today's result marks Scuderia Ferrari HP's sixth podium finish in seven races this season, further evidence of the progress made by the team and of the value of the work carried out both at the track and in Maranello, where the aerodynamic upgrades that contributed to this victory were developed. Formula 1 now pauses for a week before returning to action on 28 June for the Austrian Grand Prix at Spielberg.
"This is an incredibly special moment. Winning my first race with Ferrari is something I've dreamt about since I was a child, and to finally achieve it feels incredible. There were moments last year when this moment felt almost impossible, but I’m so grateful to Fred for believing in me and everyone there for making me feel so at home. We’ve been working so hard all year and so many things have changed over the past months, and today is the result of all that effort.
I'm so proud of everyone, both here at the track and back in Maranello. The upgrades we brought this weekend performed exactly as we hoped, the car felt great, and the team executed everything perfectly. The pitstops were fantastic and every detail was handled brilliantly.
I've been fortunate enough to experience many special moments in my career, but this one is different. Ferrari has the greatest fans in the world and seeing their passion, their energy and their support makes this victory even more meaningful. This is a day I'll never forget, and I hope it's the first of many wins that we can celebrate together."
Lewis Hamilton #44
"There was an issue on my car towards the end of the race, and unfortunately, I had to retire early. Our team should be proud of the upgrades we brought to the car, which ramped up our performance to this level. Congratulations to Lewis for his first win with the team, he did a great job this weekend and put it all together today.
I look forward to the next race now and hope we come back stronger in Austria with a clean weekend."
Charles Leclerc #16
"This is a very good day for the whole team, for Lewis and for all the guys at the factory who are pushing flat-out all the time. This result is the best way to thank them. The past year and a half has been quite difficult, with plenty of ups and downs, so to win today is a huge push for us. It is a strong start to the European part of the season. Before this, we had two consecutive podium finishes in Canada and Monaco and now we can add the win, having had a strong enough pace to fight for pole yesterday.
From lap 1, we knew tyre management would be the key and in that respect Lewis did a fantastic job all race long. He was in control of the situation, pushing when we asked him to. Our strategy was aggressive but that is what you can afford to do when you have the pace for the win. Charles was unlucky as he had to retire a few laps from the end but I'm sure he will be fighting for victories together with Lewis in the coming races.
We start over again in Austria in a fortnight’s time, approaching the weekend in the same way we did here, keeping in mind that we were not nowhere two weeks ago and we are not world champions today."
Fred Vasseur, Team Principal
