Every team went into the Spanish Grand Prix pretty certain it was going to be a one-stop race. It wasn’t. The tyre degradation and wear was more aggressive than had seemed the case during Friday practice and it migrated the race to a two-stop – and that certainly only enhanced Mercedes’ prospects. Lewis Hamilton’s victory over Red Bull’s Max Verstappen drew obvious comparisons with the nearidentical pattern seen in the 2019 Hungarian Grand Prix, with Hamilton pitting from close behind the leader, emerging over 20sec behind but his fresher tyres enabling him to catch and pass Verstappen with a few laps to go. You typically need an advantage of at least 1.2sec per lap to be able to overtake around this track. Hamilton on tyres 18 laps newer than Verstappen’s was lapping around 1.5sec faster by the time he caught him and passed.
Could Red Bull have done anything different? If it brought Verstappen in for a second stop immediately after Hamilton, he would have rejoined around 2sec behind. He would have been on fresh soft tyres (because that’s all the team had left) to the fresh mediums of Hamilton. The softs were only around 0.7sec faster initially. So pitting in response to Hamilton would definitely have lost Verstappen track position and made it unlikely he’d be able to pass. Staying out offered the possibility that Hamilton would not make up the 21sec pit stop loss in the remaining 24 laps and that Verstappen could defend in the late stages. So by the time Mercedes made the second stop Red Bull was faced with a choice between certain loss of position (by pitting) or likely loss of position (by staying out).