Hamilton Shines Again in 2020 Spanish Grand Prix

Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton dominated the Spanish Grand Prix, leading all 66 laps from pole position, to record his fifth Spanish Grand Prix win, and his fourth victory of the season. Following Hamilton's disappointing loss to Red Bull's Max Verstappen -- 2nd place in the 2020 Spanish GP -- in the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix in Silverstone, the British racer executed a near-perfect race in the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya and was too fast for Verstappen and teammate Valterri Bottas.

Courtesy of Formula 1 (F1.com)

In temperatures of 30C, the race was grueling physically for all the drivers, but several drivers performed at the top level.

Hamilton was undoubtedly one of the racers of the day. With a blazing time of 1:31:45.279, Hamilton extended his World Championship lead to 37 points over Verstappen (95), who is six ahead of Bottas (89). For Hamilton, the victory was special. It was the 88th win of Hamilton's career, and he is now only three points shy from Michael Schumacher's record of wins. The 1st place finish was also his 156th podium appearance, a new record, beating the previous mark, also held by Schumacher. Following the race, Hamilton talked about "how zoned in he was" throughout the entire race and was "ready to keep going."

Despite failing to take the chequered flag and not "having the pace like Lewis," Verstappen was able to split the Mercedes drivers once again. The fast start of Verstappen from third, prevented Bottas from advancing, allowing Verstappen through into second and providing an opportunity for Racing Point's Lance Stroll to pinch third. Verstappen did incredibly well in the latter half of the race to hold onto second with medium tires despite Bottas' change in strategy to switch on to the soft tire. Post-race, Verstappen told BBC Sports, "We just have to try to focus on ourselves, try to improve, be a bit more competitive and not just rely on softer [tire] compounds. [We] have to find a bit more performance in the car and engine and be more competitive."

Verstappen was focused on his race instead of looking for Hamilton (Courtesy of F1)

It was a successful day for the Racing Point team in Barcelona as Lance Stroll and Sergio Perez took 4th and 5th, respectively. Stroll's incisive move, darting first to the left and then to the right before diving down the inside of Bottas, got him off to one of his quickest starts this season. Perez made a one-stop strategy work perfectly to take fourth, but that became fifth after a five-second penalty was given for ignoring blue flags, bumping Stroll up to fourth. Compared to the 70th Anniversary GP (Stroll 6th, Hülkenberg 7th) and the British GP (Stroll 9th, Hülkenberg DNF), Racing Point was successful in collecting both driver and constructer points.

*Blue Flags:

In F1 racing, Blue flags are shown to a driver to indicate that a faster car is behind them and attempting to overtake. Blue flags are waved both to lapped cars and those racing. A lapped car must allow the faster car past after a maximum of three blue flags or risk being penalized.

Racing Point's Lance Stroll moves ahead of Bottas to jump into third place (Courtesy of BBC Sports)

For Bottas, Sunday was a dispiriting experience. Though the Finnish Driver DRS-ed past Stroll for third on Lap 5, the slow start extinguished the hopes of closing the gap between Hamilton. Moreover, due to a small number of overtaking points on the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya track, passing Verstappen was even more challenging for Bottas. The third-place podium finish hugely upset Bottas, and his dreams of winning the Formula 1 Championship this year became distant.

The F1 Championship battle continues on August 30th at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps for the Belgian Grand Prix!

Check out the race highlights from the 2020 Spanish Grand Prix (Official Formula 1 YouTube Channel)!