Barcelona…
A few days later than planned — the bike shop has had its own ideas about how this week should go — but the league waits for no man, so here we are.
686 days. That's how long Lewis Hamilton had gone without a grand prix win before Sunday, and he chose the Catalan furnace to end it — his first victory in Ferrari red, his 106th overall, and enough to make him the oldest race winner since 1970. A three-stop that looked reckless right up until it looked inspired did the job, helped by a perfectly timed virtual safety car when Alonso's Aston Martin gave up the ghost.
The heat ran the show. Bottas and Stroll fell early to reliability, Leclerc lost power steering, and Hülkenberg and Albon followed them out. Antonelli, the championship leader, delivered the afternoon's cruellest twist — he took second off Russell with five laps to go, then lost everything to an electrical failure and picked up a penalty for good measure. Williams, for their part, endured an afternoon best forgotten and quietly turned their race into a test session.
To our own grid, where Barcelona changed less than the chaos suggested.
The top six stood firm. Team Bennie-tton leads on 781, unmoved from the summit it has held after every round this season. Fasnacht FC (700) and Almila Racing (681) hold 2nd and 3rd, Racing Point (654) is a settled 4th, MWS Racing (636) a steady 5th, and Dragonfly (598) banked a tidy +63 to keep 6th.
All the week's real drama lived in the fight for 7th. Harvey Mushman was the standout, topping the round with +81 and climbing to 8th — a sharp return to form that has the chasing pack glancing over their shoulders. Marks Marauders edged up to 7th with a modest +40, beneficiary as much as architect of the reshuffle. And the reshuffle's cause was Luck of the Irish: fresh off a sensational +149 to win Monaco, the team crashed back to earth with -2, the round's only minus, and slipped from 7th to 9th. Hero to here in a single weekend.
At the foot of the table, Brutus Force 1 (+34) and Heads Up Racing (+29) had quieter afternoons in 10th and 11th, while Wallop A Sassenach — still 12th — posted a season-best +52 that, pleasingly, outscored the league leader's haul for the round. Persistence has its small victories.
A note for the owners: there'll be no repricing this round. Driver prices carry over unchanged, with the next set of adjustments due after Austria.
Two cancelled rounds are behind us, the title picture has shifted after Antonelli's misfortune, and Austria is a fortnight away. Slate's clean. See you there.