lewis hamilton won a race for ferrari at 41
hamilton's first ferrari win came in barcelona with three stops and a free pit stop from alonso's dead aston, and it cut antonelli's lead to 41.
lewis hamilton won a grand prix in a ferrari. i’ve read that sentence a few times now and it still looks like a typo. this is the same guy who went all of last year without a single grand prix podium in red.
it wasn’t a fluke either. he started P2 on the softs behind george russell, and ferrari put him on a three-stop while nearly everyone else did two. when he needed his third stop, a virtual safety car showed up and made it basically free. he won by 19.5 seconds. (yes, ferrari got the strategy right. i checked twice.)
the numbers are a bit silly. at 41 he’s the oldest winner since jack brabham in 1970, and the first driver over 40 to win since nigel mansell in 1994. it’s win number 106, his first since spa in 2024, and his seventh in barcelona, which is one more than schumacher managed. russell and lando norris joined him on the podium, the first all-british one since 1968.
now for the part that hurts. that virtual safety car was for fernando alonso, whose aston martin died with a battery problem at his home race, after starting from the pit lane. lance stroll’s gearbox had already given up within six laps. so my GOAT’s contribution to the barcelona grand prix was handing lewis hamilton a free pit stop. aston martin has one point after seven races. if a 41-year-old can win in a decent car, imagine what the 44-year-old could do with one.
the other story is kimi antonelli. he’d won five in a row and came to spain 66 points clear. with five laps left he muscled past russell for second, damaged his front wing doing it, and then slowed and parked on the grass with a technical problem. zero points. mercedes had already warned the two of them earlier in the race about fighting each other, so that debrief must have been fun.
so the lead is 41 over hamilton and 50 over russell. is it a title fight? not yet. antonelli is 19, has five wins from seven races, and mercedes has taken pole at every round. but the mercedes win streak is over and hamilton is second in the championship, and two weeks ago i’d have laughed at both of those.
next up is austria on 28 june. my prediction: antonelli takes pole, wins, and everyone goes back to pretending barcelona never happened. hamilton gets on the podium anyway. see you then.