Barcelona GP: How Hamilton became a Ferrari winner at last
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Athletic.
The race is on, and Lewis Hamilton finally claimed his long-awaited first Grand Prix victory for Ferrari in Barcelona, the car showing startling race pace after a major upgrade. But with Kimi Antonelli retiring just after passing title rival George Russell, what does all of this mean for the championship fight? I'm Ed Straw, and with me here in Spain are Josh Sutil and John Noble. Well, John, finally, Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari have won a Grand Prix together. Given how tough these past 18 months have been for him, how significant is win number 106, do you think?
Massive, I think, on... Quite a few fronts. First of all, I think putting to bed all the doubts that even he admitted that they were kind of potentially swirling around a little bit as the criticisms came last year. People saying he's, you know, past it. He's not going to return to that form. But he believed he could get there and knuckled down this winter and turned it around.
How did Lewis Hamilton achieve his first Grand Prix victory for Ferrari?
So from the personal perspective, no. There's that. Secondly, he always believed he could make a success of Ferrari. There were times last year it didn't seem it was going to happen, but I think justifying that belief. But I think of more importance was this wasn't a win that was down to... Five other people retiring. He was limping around and he came home and took the chequered flag first. This was a win on pace. Yes, there was an element of, which I'm sure we're going to later, brilliant fortune with the VSC. But I think irrespective of that, the likelihood is it would have been hard a journey to get there.
What does Kimi Antonelli's retirement mean for the championship fight?
The likelihood of this was a Lewis Hamilton win because he was simply the, it was the fastest car on the fastest strategy with the fastest driver on the day.
Yeah, it reminded me a little bit of his 2020 win here for Mercedes when he was just driving absolutely brilliantly. I remember him talking in the press conference about just kind of being in that zone. And although, again, it was, yes, the fastest car, but it was kind of Lewis Hamilton at his best. And, Josh, it wasn't a foregone conclusion, I think, that we'd necessarily even see this day, which makes it, I guess, even a bigger deal because it's ultimately a megastar driver with Formula One's most famous team. The match made in heaven that started a bit shakily, And finally, this win has arrived and it might never have come.
I'm happy to hold my hands up and admit and be one of those people who was doubting him a lot last year and thought that this day might never come unless it was a fortuitous win. Because, you know, last year did get really, really bad. It was weekend after weekend of anguish, of, you know, Q1, Q2 exits, very unbecoming of a driver like Hamilton. And the crucial thing for me is that this isn't just one weekend where he's performed really well. This has been building for rounds and rounds. We've seen this momentum over the last couple of rounds. You know, Montreal, he was very strong. In Monaco, I thought he did a good job as well. And he's come here to another one of his kind of favorite circuits and just delivered from start to finish.
Did a really good job in qualifying and a great job today. So, yeah, the most promising thing is that it doesn't look like just a perfect storm of a one-off of a weekend.
What significance does Hamilton's win hold for his career?
Yeah, that's the thing. It comes off the back of two second places. So it's not an island. There's been a really impressive trajectory in the first part of the season. And you could see from the emotional reaction on the podium, the radio messages, everything. This meant so much, didn't it, John? And I think that revealed just how hard Lewis Hamilton has been working to get this breakthrough.
This is a result of hard work. There's no other way around it. There has been a supreme effort from him working with the team, working with the engineers, working with Fred Vasseur. I think engineering a car around his tastes, it's not been difficult. It's taken a while to get there. Fred's talked about the... Input that Lewis gave in the simulator 12 months ago, seeing that come to fruition with his car design, pushing things his way, a lot of focus the last two weeks, or since Monaco, on the brakes and Lewis's shift to carbon industry.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:02–1:11
2
How did Lewis Hamilton achieve his first Grand Prix victory for Ferrari?
1:11–1:50
3
What does Kimi Antonelli's retirement mean for the championship fight?
1:50–3:22
4
What significance does Hamilton's win hold for his career?
3:22–6:22
5
How did Hamilton's performance compare to his previous seasons?
6:22–34:16
6
What were the strategies employed by Ferrari during the race?
34:16–36:42
7
How did the virtual safety car impact the race outcome?
36:42–1:03:34
Speakers
4 identifiedMore from The Race F1 Podcast
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