Defending champion Max Verstappen completed his 2023 Spanish F1 appearance with a big win.
Max Verstappen's victory in the 2023 Spanish F1 race can be achieved quite easily, although there were several times complaining of problems.
Verstappen had complained about the weak grip of his hard tires after his first pit stop.
The original plan was to use the tires until the end of the race with a single pit stop strategy.
However, with weak grip, the Red Bull Racing team was forced to make a second pit stop to switch to soft tires.
The second pit stop fortunately did not significantly reduce the gap between the Dutch driver and his rival.
He was already too far ahead and too difficult for his rivals to catch up with.
Even with these soft tires, Verstappen managed to take the fastest lap and made it even faster until the end.
That earned the 26-year-old the Grand Slam title at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
That's because the driver took pole, victory, led the race from the first lap, and recorded the fastest lap as well.
In addition, the two-time world champion was also disturbed because he received three track limit warnings from the Stewards.
But it still didn't affect the rhythm of the race, which was very consistent from the first lap.
The rest of the podium was secured by the surprise Mercedes duo of Lewis Hamilton and George Russell.
The problem of tire degradation, which is usually a big scourge of Mercedes W14 cars, was completely invisible this time.
Meanwhile, Sergio Perez, who started from 11th position, managed to finish fourth with a good performance.
Actually Perez was predicted to reach the second podium, but the surprise from the Mercedes duo canceled the target.
The pace of Hamilton and Russell also meant that Carlos Sainz had to settle for fifth, despite Ferrari trying the undercut strategy that is usually effective in Barcelona.
Here's the results table for the 2023 Spanish F1 race:
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