Here’s how to watch Spanish Grand Prix as Lewis Hamilton eyes fifth consecutive win
Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton will be looking to win the Spanish Grand Prix for a fifth successive time and sixth overall at the fourth round of the 2021 Formula 1 World Championship, on Sunday May 9, 2021.
He has won every Spanish Grand Prix since 2017.
If Hamilton wins on Sunday, he would be joining the great Michael Schumacher as the most successful driver in the event’s history. Yet Barcelona is also a special place for Red Bull Racing pilot Max Verstappen, who famously won his first F1 GP there in 2016, becoming the youngest race winner of all time.
DStv viewers can look forward to the live action from the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on Sunday May 9, 2021 at 1:55pm on SuperSport Grandstand and SuperSport Motorsport (DStv channel 201 & 215).
The third round of the season in Portugal this past weekend saw Hamilton claim a dominant victory to open an eight-point lead over Verstappen in the Drivers’ Championship.
The Silver Arrows were the dominant force at Portimao, with Valtteri Bottas claiming pole position and the fastest lap, while Hamilton’s race pace was far beyond anything Verstappen could manage – though the Dutchman did manage to outmaneuver Bottas for second place.
“That was such a tough race – physically and mentally,” Hamilton said after the match. “Just keeping everything together. It’s very windy out there, so it’s very easy to just put a foot wrong. I just didn’t quite get as good a start as Valtteri and lost out on the restart, which was not good. I was not happy about that, naturally.
“I really had to try and position myself the best that I could, I can’t remember but I think Max made a mistake at some point on the lap which was perfect, and I knew that was the lap where I was going to be as close as I could to him in the last sector.
“Then with Valtteri, I had to make the move early on before the tyres were destroyed and managed to just get him into turn one, just right on the limit. Just great racing.”
Hamilton, who is also seeking a 100th career pole position this weekend, told newsmen after his practice on Friday that “it has been a good start to the weekend and the track is awesome, it looks close, but it looks like we have got decent pace there.
“Once we have analysed these two sessions, we can hopefully have a better set-up for tomorrow.”
According to former F1 driver Nico Rosberg – the only man to beat Hamilton in a title fight in the hybrid era – Verstappen is now “starting to understand better and better how good Lewis Hamilton is” and believes that the pressure is starting to show.
The German added, “He needs to do everything perfect to beat him in the World Championship but at the moment it is 2-1 for Lewis. I think [Red Bull] would have wanted the win here because they had the fastest car.
“If we think about qualifying it was Max Verstappen who had the fastest lap, it just got deleted because of a mistake. And fastest lap again in the race, Verstappen got it deleted again for going off track limits. That’s too many mistakes.”
The Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya is a track all the teams and drivers are familiar with, as it serves as one of the pre-season testing venues and the Spanish GP been a fixture on the Formula 1 calendar for decades.
