The 53rd Formula One Spanish Grand Prix was held on Sunday, June 4th at the the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya outside of Barcelona, Spain, the 33rd time the track has hosted the event, and Red Bull's Max Verstappen took the checkers, not a surprise, as the Dutch driver and two time World Champion was lights-out quickest during the qualifying session on the previous day.

"To win here again feels incredible. It's a massive pleasure to drive a car like this. It was important to try and keep the lead into turn one, it was quite tight," said Verstappen. "From there onwards it was about managing the tyres, I was able to create a big gap."

"We went on to the hards but I didn't seem to have much grip, I was sliding around quite a lot, the pace was okay but I couldn't create more of a gap, so we switched to softs and then I just needed to bring it home," said Verstappen off Red Bull's race winning tire strategy.

Verstappen had to beat Ferrari driver and Spanish native, Carlos Sainz, who qualified his SF-23 outside the pole, to Turn 1. Sainz ended his day fifth, after giving up positions to both the Silver Arrows of Mercedes and the Red Bull of Verstappen's teammate Sergio Perez.

"It was a tough race. Unfortunately, we couldn't fight at the front as our pace is pretty much dictated by tyre management and degradation," said Sainz. "I know Sundays have been frustrating so far this season, but we gave it our all on track this weekend and we will keep working on this new package and on developing our car."

With Mercedes drivers both securing podium finishes it was a good day for the Brackley, UK based team with their first double podium finish since Brazil last year. Russell put on impressive performance, starting from P12. Hamilton started P4.

"It was a pretty good race today. said Russell. "This morning, I had a lot of confidence that I could move forward from P12 and thought that P5 or P6 was achievable. After a good start, our pace was just there from the very beginning."

"I'm really pleased with the hard work that has been done in Brackley and Brixworth, and happy for everyone in the Team. It's a good result but we need to be realistic too," said Toto Wolff, Mercedes Team Principal & CEO. "The lower temperatures today and on Saturday really suited us; it was nice and fresh, not too hot nor too cold, and the car was in a mega window."

The AMR23's of Aston-Martin finished sixth and seventh, with Lance Stroll taking P6 and Spaniard Fernando Alonzo finishing in P7.

Early in the Grand Prix Stroll actually overtook the veteran Hamilton to move into P3.

"It was a fun battle with Lewis [Hamilton] on the first lap; I've pulled that move off before so I knew there was a gap and figured Lewis would leave me a bit of space, which he did," said Stroll. "That put me in a good position going into Turn Five and I could hold the place."

The Alpines of Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly put in a good effort with a second-in-a-row double points finish with Ocon finishing P8 and his fellow French countryman finishing P10.

Alfa Romeo's Zhou Guanyu secured a ninth place finish following a penalty to AlphaTauri's Yuki Tsunoda. Zhou had eighth and 10th place finishes in his 2022 rookie F1 season.

Pos	Driver		Team		Time		Gap

1	Verstappen	Red Bull	66	1h 27:57.940
2	Hamilton	Mercedes	66	+ 0:24.090
3	Russell		Mercedes	66	+ 0:32.389
4	Perez		Red Bull	66	+ 0:35.812
5	Sainz		Ferrari		66	+ 0:45.698
6	Stroll		Aston Martin	66	+ 1:03.320
7	Alonso		Aston Martin	66	+ 1:04.127
8	Ocon		Alpine		66	+ 1:09.242
9	Zhou		Alfa Romeo	66	+ 1:11.878
10	Gasly		Alpine		66	+ 1:13.530
11	Leclerc		Ferrari		66	+ 1:14.419
12	Tsunoda		AlphaTauri	66	+ 1:15.416
13	Piastri		McLaren		65	+ 1 Lap
14	de Vries	AlphaTauri	65	+ 1 Lap
15	Hulkenberg	Haas		65	+ 1 Lap
16	Albon		Williams	65	+ 1 Lap
17	Norris		McLaren		65	+ 1 Lap
18	Magnussen	Haas		65	+ 1 Lap
19	Bottas		Alfa Romeo	65	+ 1 Lap
20	Sargeant	Williams	65	+ 1 Lap

Fastest Lap: Verstappen (Red Bull) 1:16.330 (Lap 61)

(image provided by  Alpine F1 Media)