But the race was a different story. Bottas finished the Spanish Grand Prix almost 45 seconds behind Hamilton and around 20 seconds behind Red Bull ace Max Verstappen.

Mercedes have been quick to defend Bottas, with technical director James Allison disagreeing with F1 pundit David Coulthard’s suggestion that his performance was “lacklustre”.

“I don’t think it’s fair to characterise it as lacklustre,” Allison said.

He emphasised that the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya is a “tricky track to overtake at”, and said their pace advantage over the Red Bull wasn’t enough for an on-track overtake.

READ: Palmer Slams Leclerc For Driving On-Track Without a Seatbelt

“And Valtteri had a poor start, but was able to run back up into the fight at the front but not enough to overtake,” he added.

“I don’t think it was a poor performance, he just didn’t get away as well as Lewis did at the start, but the pace was basically there and had it been a free-air race he certainly would have been ahead of Max.”

After the race, Bottas said in a tweet that P3 was far from their goal for the Spanish GP.

“3rd today far from what the goal was. Will analyse and learn everything that could have been done better this weekend & find the fighting spirit back before the next one,” he wrote.

The Finn currently sits third in the F1 driver standings on 89 points. Hamilton, meanwhile, comfortably tops the table on 132 points and is in a very strong position to win his seventh F1 Championship.

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And on lap 36, things took a turn for the worse, with Charles Leclerc’s SF1000 spinning at the chicane in the last sector due to an electrical issue with the car.

This caused the car to stall – and Leclerc eventually gave up on restarting the engine and took off his seatbelt.

However, Ferrari asked him to try one more time. This time the engine did switch back on, and Leclerc drove his Ferrari back to the pitlane to retire the car.

Unsurprisingly, Leclerc has drawn flak for driving his Formula 1 car while not wearing a seatbelt.

Jolyon Palmer, who drove for Renault during his relatively brief F1 career, has called Leclerc’s actions “dangerous”.

“Driving a lap with seatbelts undone in Formula 1 seems like the most dangerous think you could possibly do,” Palmer said.

“You can’t drive in a 30 zone without your seatbelt on, let alone doing 150mph with 19 racing cars going wheel-to-wheel either side of you.

“Barriers [are] not all that far away at times as well. I’m sure Leclerc came back as steadily as he could, but you’re still on a live race track in the middle of a grand prix. There’s no safety car,” he added. 

Sebastian Vettel fared better than his teammate at the Spanish GP, with the German driver pulling off a one-stop strategy to claim P7 and was voted Driver of the Day.

The four-time World Champion has strongly been linked with a move to Racing Point for the 2021 season.

According to reports from Italy, he will sign a $15 million contract with the team, which will be re-branded Aston Martin Racing next year, at the Belgium Grand Prix in late August.

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The Gazzetta dello Sport newspaper claims that Racing Point, which will be re-branded Aston Martin Racing next season, has already offered Vettel a $15 million contract which he will sign later this month.

At the moment, Racing Point is seemingly the best option available to Vettel for 2021, with very few competitive drives available elsewhere on the grid.

Ferrari and the four-time World Champion agreed to part ways prior to the start of the delayed 2020 F1 season, and he has been strongly linked with Racing Point in recent months.

Both of their current drivers – Lance Stroll and Sergio Perez – have contracts which cover the 2021 season, but it nevertheless remains likely that Vettel will join the team next season.

READ: Spanish GP: Sebastian Vettel Finishes 7th Amid Tensions At Ferrari

Due to Lance Stroll’s father, Lawrence Stroll, heading up the consortium of investors which owns the team and Aston Martin, it’s unlikely that Lance would be forced to give way for Vettel.

Instead, Perez could be forced out despite him generally outperforming Stroll on the track and bringing a considerable amount of funding to the team via Mexican sponsorship deals.

Some of his sponsors are offering up more money in a bid to help the Mexican driver retain his place on the grid, according to reports.

Despite all of the circulating rumours linking Vettel to the team, Perez said at the Spanish Grand Prix that his Racing Point seat “seems safe” for 2021.

“I can’t do anything about the rumours about Vettel,” he said. “The team has told me that we want to continue. My place seems safe.”

Inspired by Mercedes’ 2019 car, Racing Point have developed a very competitive package which has been the subject of controversy ever since it was unveiled.

They are currently third in the Constructors’ Championship after accruing 63 points from the first six rounds of the revised 2020 season.

The FIA recently docked the team 15 Constructors’ Championship points after it determined that the brake ducts on their RP20 F1 car were developed illegally.

The Lawrence Stroll-owned outfit was also fined €400,000. Its drivers weren’t deducted any points.

Racing Point swiftly appealed the ruling while a few other F1 teams also filed appeals, arguing that the team shouldn’t be allowed to continue to compete in the remainder of the season with the illegally developed brake ducts.

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Teammate Valtteri Bottas ended the Grand Prix some 44 seconds behind Hamilton in P3 – and admitted after the race that his chances of winning the championship this season are fading away.

READ: Spanish GP: Sebastian Vettel Finishes 7th Amid Tensions At Ferrari

The Silver Arrows locked out the front grid in qualifying, with Hamilton taking pole position, but Bottas fell to fourth by the end of the first lap after getting a poor launch into turn one.

The win handed Hamilton his 156^th podium in F1, breaking Michael Schumacher’s all-time podium record.

He has scored 132 points so far this season and leads the driver standings from Verstappen in the Honda-powered Red Bull by 37 points.

Bottas, meanwhile, sits third in the standings on 89 points.

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The result brings Vettel to eleventh in the Formula 1 driver standings, with the outgoing Ferrari driver picking up 16 points from the six races held so far this season.

Vettel has consistently been outperformed by teammate Charles Leclerc this season, who currently sits fourth in the standings.

Leclerc retired from the Spanish GP with a technical failure as he went through the chicane in the final sector of the circuit.

Tensions flared between Ferrari and Vettel this weekend. The German driver didn’t a single word on the radio during qualifying and later clashed with his race engineer over strategy during the race.

When asked by the team for his thoughts on finishing the race on the soft tyre, Vettel replied, “Ah, f**k sake, I asked you this before.”

He was frustrated that Ferrari hadn’t told him to conserve his tyres earlier in the Grand Prix, which made it more difficult for him to nurse the tyres to the finish line.

Vettel later got back on the radio and said: “I can do that. Let’s try. There’s nothing to lose.”

Despite the mildly encouraging result, Vettel said there is still more work to be done as he looks to improve his performance in the remainder of the season.

With Vettel clearly not wanted at Ferrari and their relationship going downhill, some F1 pundits and former drivers have called for Vettel to leave the team before the end of the season.

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Hamilton managed a fastest lap time of 1:15.584, which he set on his first run in the final session of qualifying. Bottas was marginally slower, ending up with a fastest lap time of 1:15.643.

Although the two Mercedes drivers dominated qualifying, the race is unlikely to be a stroll to the chequered flag for the Silver Arrows.

Red Bull ace Max Verstappen, who will start the race third on the grid, is likely to be a threat, with his car predicted to have better race pace than the Mercedes.

As we saw in last weekend’s 70^th Anniversary GP, the Red Bull RB16 is much softer on its tyres in hot conditions than the Silver Arrows.

This could come into play on Sunday, with temperatures in Barcelona forecast to hit around 27 Degrees Celsius.

Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 team principal Toto Wolff suggested after qualifying that Verstappen is favourite to win the race.

“I believe the work that has been done during the week and from yesterday to today was good. I think we have improved and that is most important, and I hope we can give him [Verstappen] a run for his money, but definitely Max needs to be seen as the favourite based on yesterday’s long runs,” Wolff said.

He went on to point out that while the track conditions we’re seeing this weekend are similar to those we had at Silverstone a week earlier, the two tracks have “very different” designs.

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