Race Report: Tough Afternoon in Barcelona

• George Russell finished second whilst Kimi Antonelli retired four laps from the end of Sunday’s Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix.

• It was a tricky afternoon for the team with the Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton and the McLaren of Lando Norris putting our duo under pressure throughout.

• Having started on the Medium compound, both George and Kimi ran a traditional Medium-Hard-Hard two-stop strategy.

• However, it was the three-stopping Ferrari of Hamilton who gained the advantage by being able to take a cheap final stop under a Virtual Safety Car period and return to the track in the lead.

• In the closing stages, Kimi moved past George to take P2 on track before suffering a race ending electrical shutdown moments later.

• George therefore re-inherited P2 but it was valuable points lost for both team and driver in the World Championships.

• With victory, Hamilton narrows Kimi’s advantage in the Drivers’ standings to 41 points whilst the team holds a 72-point advantage in the Constructors’.

• The team returns to racing in action in Austria later this month to start the next double-header.

Kimi Antonelli

It is very disappointing to retire from P2, but these things can happen in racing. George suffered an issue in Canada and now it’s happened to me; we know our reliability is something we need to work on and I am sure the team will be pushing incredibly hard to improve that. It’s more important points that we’ve lost but we must remember that it is the first year of these new regulations and we are all learning quickly.

Congratulations to Lewis (Hamilton) on his victory today. He is a great driver and has been so much help in my career so far. I am pleased to see him up there once again as he really deserves it. I think we had the pace today to challenge him for the win, but the Virtual Safety Car came out at a bad time for us, and we didn’t get to see how things would have played out.

We have one week without racing before returning in Austria. We have seen our competitors take a step forward here this weekend and we will need to raise our game there if we want to fight for victory again. We will pick ourselves up, learn from this weekend, and come back stronger.

Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director

Despite getting a car on the podium, we leave Barcelona with a feeling of disappointment. We were not fast enough today and know that we can't afford to be retiring with a reliability issue.

Both cars got off the line well despite being on the Medium compound and the first stint ran broadly to plan. Lewis (Hamilton) triggered the stops early and as we had to cover, that made a three-stop a little more attractive. Our simulations were still showing that a two-stop was the optimum strategy though.

Through the second stint, we didn't have the pace to build a sufficient gap to Lewis to be able to cover his three-stop with George, so we elected to commit to the two-stop to keep track position. Lewis' pace on that third stint was strong, and we were losing a bit with backmarkers, then more time with our two cars interacting. When Lando (Norris) stopped on lap 35, we had to cover with both shortly after, which ultimately created the situation where Lewis was able to benefit from the Virtual Safety Car and come out in front rather than having to overtake on track.

We'll be working hard to understand why Kimi's car stopped and similarly working out where we can find a bit more pace, as ultimately, we lacked the speed to control the race and that's what cost us the win.