After another lacklustre visit to Monaco, the Formula 1 roadshow moves on to the Spanish Grand Prix for Round Nine of the 2025 season.
Having closed the gap on teammate Oscar Piastri, McLaren’s Lando Norris will be looking to reclaim the lead of the Drivers’ Championship with a strong showing in Catalunya.
Elsewhere, Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton will be hoping to build on a topsy-turvy weekend in Monte Carlo.
The seven-time World Champion certainly has a mixed history at the Barcelona circuit, with some excellent wins punctuated by controversial moments, none more so than in the 2016 edition of the race.
‘I saw a gap and I went for it’ – Lewis Hamilton’s Senna-esque response after 2016 crash with Nico Rosberg
As had been the case since the change of regulations in 2014, the 2016 Formula 1 season was a fiercely contested intra-team battle between the Mercedes pair of Hamilton and Nico Rosberg.
Coming into Round Five in Spain, Rosberg sat top of the Drivers’ Championship having won all four prior races.
And after overtaking Lewis Hamilton off the line and into Turn One in Catalunya, the German looked good to extend that sequence.
However, a mishap heading into Turn Four, in which Rosberg put his car in the wrong engine setting, allowed Hamilton to close and attempt an overtake back.
Unfortunately for both, Hamilton lunged to Rosberg’s inside ahead of the hairpin. As he did so, Rosberg shut the door, leaving the Briton no option but to take to the grass.
That caused Hamilton to spin across the track, colliding with his teammate as Rosberg attempted to turn the corner.
Both drivers then slid into the gravel trap on the outside of Turn Four, ending their races prematurely.
Speaking to Formula 1 and multiple broadcasters in the media pen after the crash, Hamilton gave his blunt assessment of the incident, stating: “I saw a gap and I went for it, and that’s what racing drivers do.”
The 40-year-old continued: “There was a smaller gap on the left than there was on the right, so I went for the right one.”
It was a call back to Ayrton Senna’s infamous quote that “if you no longer go for a gap that exists, you’re no longer a racing driver.” That followed Senna’s first-corner collision with Alain Prost at the 1990 Japanese Grand Prix that won the Brazilian his second World Championship.
Incidentally, in his own interview after the crash, Rosberg himself admitted that he was “surprised” Hamilton “went for the gap”, adding that he “definitely didn’t expect him to do that.”
The crash was nonetheless declared as a racing incident, both drivers deemed to have been equally at fault for ending each other’s afternoons.
The Spanish Grand Prix wasn’t the only time Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg collided in 2016
Hamilton and Rosberg were both apologetic to their teams following the crash in Spain, with the Briton saying in the same interview that he was “gutted because there are 1300 people that work for this car, and… you naturally just feel like you let them down.”
It seemed neither truly learned their lesson, however, as they would collide again during that season’s Austrian Grand Prix.
This time, it was more clear-cut who was at fault, Rosberg failing to turn his Mercedes as Hamilton attempted an overtake around the outside of Turn Three.
That collision, on the final lap of the race, cost Rosberg the win and a podium as the German lost his front wing and had to coast home. To add insult to injury, the 39-year-old was also awarded a 10-second time penalty for the crash.
Hamilton’s car, meanwhile, survived any serious damage, allowing him to take the chequered flag first.
He added in his interview after the race that Rosberg “made a mistake and crashed into me.”
The German would have the last laugh that season, though, as engine failure from the lead in Malaysia ultimately cost Hamilton his fourth Driver’s Title.
Rosberg would subsequently retire from Formula 1, quite literally on top of the world, at the end of that season.