Join James Baldwin for a quick-fire run through all of the big F1 headlines from Race Day in Barcelona.
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G'day there and welcome along to the Race F1 Briefing for Sunday 23rd June 2024. Brought to you by the Singapore Grand Prix, the home of Formula One Night Racing. I'm James Baldwin and this is the podcast that brings you all of the big F1 headlines you need to know in 15 minutes or less. It was race day in Spain, so let's get into it. Maxa Stappen took a narrow victory over an ultimately deflated Lando Norris in the 2024 Spanish Grand Prix in a race that was defined by McLaren's choice of an offset strategy which almost paid off. Norris secured his first pole position in three years on Saturday and led the field away on new soft tyres. But his launch from pole was poor and while he attempted to keep Verstappen from getting by into turn 1 it was George Russell who snatched the lead from fourth on the grid. Norris meanwhile fell behind Verstappen to third. Behind them Charles Leclerc's quick getaway was immediately halted as he had to break hard to avoid Norris at the start and he failed to make up any ground. Charles Sines soon passed his fellow Ferrari driver but left the track at turn 1. He used the run off road and rejoined the track behind the ballad, complying with the rules and therefore escaped penalty. However, at the start of lap 3 Verstappen used his hefty DRS advantage to snatch the lead off of Russell and retain it after a very brief wheel to wheel skirmish through the opening turn. Verstappen built up an advantage of more than one second over Russell by the end of that lap and it seemed that the championship leader had another straightforward victory ahead of him but McLaren's choice of strategy would put that in doubt. Of the lead group Russell and Sines were the first to pit from soft to mediums on lap 16 with Hamilton following suit one lap later. Of that group Sines won out managing to emerge between the Mercedes but Hamilton soon passed him on lap 19 after the pair banged wheels. Verstappen then pitted covering the Mercedes and Sines and emerging well ahead of that group with a 1.9 second stop on lap 18. This did little to tempt Norris and Leclerc who continued to lap on their starting soft compounds. Norris finally pitted on lap 24 emerging 6th and Leclerc followed suit one lap later to emerge 7th. Norris quickly gained on Sines ahead and made easy work of the Spanish driver then stalked Hamilton but Russell proved harder work as they battled through the opening corners on lap 35. Norris passed the Mercedes at turn three before Russell retaliated around the following corner. Lando secured second place by switching back through the inside of turn five and out dragging George up the following hill. Verstappen was nine seconds ahead of the McLaren driver but Norris soon brought that deficit down to less than six. With his lead being carved into and Norris threatening to enter undercut range, Verstappen took the chance to pit for softs on lap 45. Norris came in for softs three laps later and he stayed just ahead of Russell when leaving the pits. Norris now had eight seconds to claw back if he was to win the Grand Prix in a straight fight against Verstappen. The Dutchman was told that his rival Britain was turning through his soft tyres in an attempt to catch up and Norris was quickly reeling in the deficit. With 10 laps remaining Norris was 5.5 seconds behind the championship leader. That deficit soon became harder to handle but Norris got it down to 4.3 seconds with five laps left. On the final lap the gap between Norris and Verstappen was just 2.5 seconds and the Dutchman took his seventh win of the season by 2.2 seconds. Verstappen's quick start and rapid first pitstop might have been the crucial factors for Red Bull today as it didn't show a clear pace advantage over McLaren in Spain. Norris took second with the fastest lap but was deflated over the radio as he crossed the finish line. I should have won. F'd up the start. Hamilton meanwhile secured the final podium spot having pitted for softs with 22 laps to go before passing signs and then his Mercedes teammate Russell for third place. Russell took fourth with the final stint on hard tyres while Leclerc settled for fifth, just four tents behind the Mercedes with a similar strategy to Norris, underlining Ferrari's relative struggles this weekend. Signs opted for hard tyres for his third stint and took sixth. Speaking of Ferrari, tensions ran high between Leclerc and signs after the race. Charlotte Leclerc feels Carlos signs disobeyed a pre-race order, suggesting the prompted signs to say too many times he complains after the race about something. The two have enjoyed a reasonably harmonious relationship during their four seasons as Ferrari teammates but things were arguably tensor than ever in the aftermath of the Barcelona race. Leclerc and signs maintained their fifth and sixth places at the start of the Grand Prix but signs soon set his sights on Leclerc and ended up carrying his SF24 right around the outside of Clerc at turn one. Signs inch to head but was forced to take the run off and negotiate the mandatory rejoin bollards. That still earned him fifth place and a brief message from race control noting the incident quickly turned to no further investigation. That prompted immediate ire from Leclerc over the team radio and his anger with signs had not cooled by the time he faced the media. We had a clear strategy at the beginning of the race with the team to both save tyres to attack later on explained eventual fifth place finisher Leclerc. Carlos on that lap he didn't do any saving in turn 14 and of course had an opportunity to overtake in turn one which is a bit of a shame because we lost time between us. I damaged my front wing because of Carlos making the turn not seeing that I was on the inside and that made our race more difficult but it wouldn't have changed significantly the end result. When asked if he expected signs to leave more room Leclerc said yeah but again I didn't understand the point of doing that when it was clearly stated before the race that we had to save in this part of the race. It's a bit unnecessary but I also understand that it's his home race and it's also an important moment of his career so I guess he wanted to do something a bit spectacular but I probably wasn't the right person to do that with. That important moment refers to this being crunch time for signs as future beyond 2025 as he is being replaced by Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari. Leclerc told Sky Sports F1 "I think he'll see the image and understand I was on the inside and he couldn't turn in at that point but when Sky put that to signs he was less than impressed. It's too many times he complains after the race about something said signs who completed a longer final stint on Hards and was sixth. I was on the attack. We were on a new soft. Mercedes were on a used soft. We had to go on the attack on the first laps when you have new tire and passed them like we said even before the race. I passed Charles because I don't know if he did a mistake or was just managing a bit too much then I went on a nearly passed Lewis and I undercut Lewis nearly passed Russell at pit stops. I was trying to try what I have to as a driver what is required for me as a driver to do. He had to manage more. In the end for him it kind of paid because he beat me at the end with a soft medium soft tire strategy. I elected to be aggressive soft medium hard and it didn't pay off. It is what it is." Leclerc's frustration was also put to Ferrari team boss Fred Messer who doubted Leclerc and signs Jule was massively costly and urged caution when reading too much into the driver's immediate comments. I think you can find 10 examples of 10 circumstances in the race where we missed half a second of Sir Sid. After Carlos let him go, signs obey the team order to let Leclerc pass into a net 5th place very easily later on. We missed a couple of tents during two or three laps. Let us discuss and let's not draw conclusions after the first comments of the driver when he's just jumped out of the car. It's tricky to not draw conclusions though when Leclerc and signs comments stand out in so many years of civil fighting for podiums and the occasional victory. Think how calmly Leclerc reacted to signs brutally tough defense of third at Monza last year. Signs wouldn't refer to the other times Leclerc's complained after the race if there wasn't at least an element of lingering frustration there. And the fact signs is being let go by the team despite claiming two of its last three wins. The looming self imposed crunch time to decide his future and Ferraris drop off in form over the last two weekends is only going to add to the frustration. The race F1 briefing. We'll get back to our race recap in just a moment but first of all I want to give another shout out to the home of Formula One Night Racing, the Singapore Grand Prix. Nowhere embraces a Grand Prix weekend quite like Singapore. When the teams and drivers are in town there's a buzz wherever you go. But what makes the Singapore Grand Prix such a winner for visitors is that when the racing finishes your trip need not. There's still an amazing city and surrounding area to explore. If that sounds tempting there is still single and three day tickets available for the 2024 race with prices starting at 128 Singapore dollars. Just head to Singapore GP.SG to make your selection and book your place at one of these sporting events of the year. The Singapore Grand Prix. Nothing else comes close. Now we'll take a quick look at what happened behind the top four teams. Alpene enjoyed a turn of pace in Spain with Pierre Gasly qualifying seventh and his teammate Espand Ocon 8. The pair enjoyed similar soft medium hard strategies and finished ninth and tenth respectively. Gasly lost out to Red Bull's Paris right at the end of the race but eighth place of Paris marks another poor weekend and he's just added two points to Red Bull's total in Spain. Ocon's tenth place was all but guaranteed well before the checkered flag as even though Haas's Nico Holkenberg was gaining in the final stages the German driver had a five second penalty for speeding in the pit lane. That consecutive double points finish boosts Alpene up to seventh in the Constructors' Championship ahead of Haas. Home hero Fernando Alonso was anonymous as he finished a lonely twelfth ahead of Salbas Joe Guanyu whilst Lance Stroll capped a pointless weekend for Aston Martin in 14th. Despite bringing a major upgrade package to Spain, RB finished without points as Daniel Ricardo took 15th and Yuki Sonoda 19th. Valtteri Bottas finished 16th ahead of Haas's Kevin Magnuson who copped a five second penalty early on for a false start. Williams struggled for pace and balance in Spain with Alex Albon going off track on his way to 18th and Logan Sargent well off the field in last place. Well that's it for this episode and week of racing at the Spanish Grand Prix and it's also it for me and the race F1 briefing. It's been an absolute pleasure to have joined you across each race of the season so far and help bring this podcast to life. A big thanks to the editorial team for their consistent help especially Josh, Jack and Matt but the biggest thanks must go to Johnny Reynolds who is the man behind all of the greatness that you hear across the podcast spectrum at the race. This was his baby and I'm so grateful for the opportunity to have lent my voice and production to it to get it where it is today. Thank you Johnny, I really do appreciate you. I'm moving on to focus on my TV work here in Australia so if you're down here you might just see my face or hear my voice on a motorsport broadcast very soon. But never fear this podcast isn't going anywhere and to take in more from the weekend make sure you tune into our big sibling podcast, the race F1 podcast. But from me for the last time, I'm James Baldwin and this has been the race F1 briefing brought to you by the Singapore Grand Prix, the home of Formula One Night Racing. The Athletic As you've probably heard by now, we've teamed up with BedMGM this season. 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