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Back on the Podium in Spain

Strong drives from Lewis and George in Barcelona

We still have a long way to go in our fight to the front of the field. But that doesn't take away from the fact that it felt great being back on the podium with both drivers.

P2 for Lewis and P3 for George at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya was a reward for everyone's hard work over the past few weeks and months, delivering upgrades to the car that debuted across Monaco and Spain.

Our two drivers were busy making moves all afternoon. Lewis jumped Lando Norris at the start before surviving contact on his rear left tyre, whilst he then went on to pass Carlos Sainz's Ferrari on pure pace - which was an encouraging sign for us.

George started down in P12 but had a great launch from the grid. Vaulting to P7, he was then able to extract the most from the W14 to move up the order to the podium positions, withstanding pressure from the closing Red Bull of Sergio Perez.

It gave the team a first double podium of the season and moved us ahead of Aston Martin in the Constructors' Championship.

"I'm very happy with the hard work that's been done in Brackley and Brixworth," explained Toto. "We took some decisions to go in another direction, we changed so many parts and it was a risk, but everybody just pushed forwards."

It's good to see the development direction is right.

Toto Wolff

But Toto stressed that while we had a good display in Spain, there's no guarantee that this pace will continue into the next few races. We'll be working as hard as we can to keep up this momentum, but every track is different with its own characteristics.

"We need to be realistic," he said. "The temperature really suited us. It was nice and fresh, not too cold and not too hot. The car was in a great window. It's a long way to catch up to Red Bull and we just need to grind away. It's good to see the development direction is right but this is just the beginning."

For Lewis, he was happy to survive his opening lap scare. "It was like last year, but thankfully I didn't have any damage this time," Lewis said. "After that, I was trying as hard as I could to get up to second and chase down Max, but that was impossible."

Nevertheless, P2 was a "huge surprise" and, while the W14 won't be in this sweet spot at every track, the result proved "a massive boost" for the team.

It shows all the hard work the Team has put into the upgrades.

George Russell

That surprise element was heightened given the difficulties we'd faced during FP1 and FP2. "It was very hard to predict and the balance was poor on Friday," Lewis said. "Mick did some great work in the simulator back at the factory and we did some strong analysis overnight, made the set-up changes for Saturday and the car felt good."

A real team effort to make progress and those changes also helped George find confidence in the car on Sunday. "I thought maybe P5 or P6 was possible, but the pace was there from the beginning," George explained. "I'm really pleased with this result. It shows all the hard work the Team has put into the upgrades and the next couple of races will be key for understanding them, becoming consistently the second best team and closing the gap to Red Bull."

He also got everyone excited for some potential rain during the Spanish GP. As he later admitted on the radio, that was thanks to some confusion over water on his visor. "At the start of the race I knew my hair wasn't in my balaclava properly, so it was dangling down which was quite annoying," George explained. "When I braked, there were rain drops on my visor, but I soon learned it was sweat from my hair flicking onto the visor. It was on the inside of the visor so I couldn't wipe it. So I got a little excited for some rain at one point."

Overall, it was our most positive weekend of the season so far and we're hopeful it's a sign of things to come. We took a clear step forward but we're remaining realistic with our expectations. The hard work has only just begun, and we'll be giving it our all to get more results like this - or hopefully even better!