Max Verstappen prevailed in a tense, strategic battle with Lando Norris to win the Spanish Grand Prix on Sunday.
Lewis Hamilton took his first podium finish of the year for Mercedes in third, ahead of George Russell, as Britons finished second, third and fourth. Charles Leclerc was fifth, leading home Ferrari team-mate Carlos Sainz.
Austria is next on the European triple-header list.
BBC Sport F1 correspondent Andrew Benson answers your questions after the race in Barcelona.
Are Mercedes finally back? – Pinda
Not yet – but they are getting there. Mercedes started the season still struggling with their car – it could be balanced only in one type of corner at a time. If they got it working in slow-speed corners, it would have high-speed oversteer; if it was balanced in high-speed, it had low-speed understeer.
But a series of upgrades since the Miami Grand Prix have transformed their performance. Over the first first five races of the year, Mercedes were the fifth fastest car in qualifying on average, behind Red Bull, Ferrari, McLaren and Aston Martin, 0.660 seconds off the pace. Over the second five races, that gap has come down to 0.266 and they are close to overtaking Ferrari as the third fastest team.
The upgrades were new bodywork in Miami, a new floor in Imola and a new front wing, which first only George Russell had in Monaco and which has been on both cars since Canada.
The wing has proved key – since its introduction, the car can now be balanced across a range of corner types.
And the effect has been clear – Russell was on pole position in Canada and arguably could have won the race had he made a couple fewer errors. And he led again in Spain, albeit briefly. The team have scored their first two podium positions this year in the past two races.
There have been false dawns before, but this looks like Mercedes are finally on the right track. It comes after a major internal reorganisation, and an acceptance that until this year they had not been working in the right way to get the best out of the new rules.
Russell said after Spain: “I’m confident we can win races this year now. We have led two races in two weekends after the upgrades. We wouldn’t have expended that at the beginning of the season.”
Team principal Toto Wolff was more circumspect. “It’s a reason to be carefully optimistic that we are closer and able to fight,” he said.
What are Mercedes waiting for to announce Andrea Kimi Antonelli for 2025? What if he doesn’t perform in F2 and there’s no alternative available any more? – Juha
Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff addressed this question on Sunday after the Spanish Grand Prix. He said: “No driver decision has been made. I said we want to keep this decision as long as possible. Because who knows what happens?”
It was an answer that at the same time said not very much and an awful lot.
Wolff has no need to rush into confirming Antonelli – because Antonelli is not going anywhere. He is a Mercedes-contracted young driver and Wolff can deploy him next year if he wants to, whenever he wants to.
At the moment, that’s the direction of travel. Alongside Antonelli’s debut Formula 2 season, the 17-year-old Italian is doing a lot of miles in tests in older Mercedes cars to get him prepared for an F1 debut.
That debut could come with Williams at some point this year, in place of Logan Sargeant and in preparation for 2025. Or it might wait until next year with Mercedes.
Why is Wolff keeping the door open? Because his number-one target is Max Verstappen. Mercedes recognise that it is unlikely they will be able to attract the world champion at the end of this year – although you never know – but they are hopeful they can persuade him to join them for 2026.
Wolff ducked questions about Verstappen in Spain, saying: “No talks are taking place and we need to look on ourselves and improving the car.”
Of course, that does not rule out the possibility that talks have already taken place – and they have – or that they might again – as they probably will.
Lewis Hamilton, George Russell and Lando Norris are all coming good. What are the chances of three Brits being on the podium together? Ever happened before? – Richard
With three British drivers in the top four teams in F1 at the moment, there has to be a decent chance of all three of them ending up on the podium together at some point.
Of course, it’s impossible to say definitively what the chances of that happening are, and they depend to a large degree on Max Verstappen. He is F1’s benchmark. He is operating at an incredibly high level, and he is very tough to beat. But if he hits trouble in a race in which McLaren and Mercedes are the next two fastest cars, then why not?
Has there ever been an all-British podium? Yes, a number of times. Don’t forget that for a period in the 1960s, there was a particularly golden period for British drivers with Jim Clark, Jackie Stewart, Graham Hill and John Surtees.
I believe the last time it happened was at the 1968 US Grand Prix at Watkins Glen, which Stewart’s Matra won from Hill’s Lotus and Surtees in a Honda. I’m happy to be corrected, though, if someone can find a more recent occasion.
Despite winning a race, Esteban Ocon has never really lit up F1 and isn’t spoken about in the same breath as others. Is his time in F1 up? – Duane
Esteban Ocon and Alpine have already announced they will be parting ways at the end of this season after five years together.
The Frenchman has links with Mercedes but his hopes of retaining a seat on the grid next year rest on the remaining vacancies at Haas, Williams and Sauber/Audi.
There is one seat available at each of Williams and Sauber, where Alex Albon and Nico Hulkenberg are already under contract respectively. Haas theoretically have two seats open but really it’s only one, as Briton Oliver Bearman is expected to get a permanent drive after he starred on his debut as a sub for Carlos Sainz at Ferrari in Saudi Arabia earlier this year.
Sainz is the logjam in the driver market. Once he decides, the remaining drivers can slot into place.
Logan Sargeant’s F1 career looks over. Of the rest – Ocon, Valtteri Bottas, Kevin Magnussen and Zhou Guanyu – at least one and possibly more is likely to lose out. It remains to be seen who that will be.
Of the teams nearer the back (ie Williams, Sauber, Haas and RB), which do you think has the best short (one year) and long-term prospects? – Liam
On paper, you’d say it should be Sauber, as they are turning into the Audi works team in 2026 and should have all the resource necessary to become front-line contenders.
But nothing is a given in F1 and manufacturers don’t always succeed – as Toyota proved in the 2000s. For all its massive budget, it never won a race. Alpine/Renault has proved the same – albeit on a less than top budget – since 2016.
Williams have a plan and ambition to move up the grid. It’s far less clear that either is the case for RB and Haas in their current forms.
Alpine are in complete freefall this season. What’s gone wrong there and do Renault have the will to make them a winning force again? – David
It’s true that Alpine have been through some considerable turmoil in the last year but I would disagree with the idea that they are in “complete freefall”. In fact, they have made major progress this year, albeit from a very low starting point.
They have definitely plumbed some depths in recent times. First, they mismanaged the driver market horrendously in 2022, and lost both Fernando Alonso and Oscar Piastri.
Since then, former chief executive Laurent Rossi – who was ultimately responsibly for losing Alonso and Piastri – has been fired. And Alpine have also lost a team principal, sporting director and operations director (all fired), and a technical director, chief technical officer, head of aerodynamics and engineering consultant (who all resigned).
But there are positives. They have signed David Sanchez, formerly of McLaren and Ferrari, and highly regarded, as executive technical director. And now they have recruited Flavio Briatore as an executive adviser. Whatever you think of Briatore’s chequered history, few doubt his expertise in F1.
Meanwhile, on track things are looking up. Alpine had a terrible start to the season – they were the slowest team of all on average qualifying pace over the first five races. But in the second five they were sixth – and have reduced their gap to the front from 1.715 seconds to 0.793. That’s impressive progress.
On top of that, they have scored points at both the last two races.
It remains a fact that they are a long way from where they want to be, and a long way from where they were just two years ago.
Renault chief executive officer Luca de Meo is questioning everything in his attempts to turn the team around – even whether they should abandon their in-house engine project and become a customer team.
That sounds bonkers to many on the face of it. But at least it shows a willingness from De Meo to re-evaluate from top to bottom to try to get back to where they want to be.
Refuelling made racing more exciting due to strategy. Do you think it would ever be reintroduced? – Rizwan
Did refuelling really make F1 more exciting? Statistically, the refuelling era of 1994-2009 had the least on-track overtakes of any period of modern F1.
Along with the expense and danger, that’s why it was dropped for 2010.
There is no appetite in F1 to bring it back – for all those reasons.