Ferrari were again very fast in Spain, despite major upgrades to the Mercedes cars. Vettel, who had a scare in Q1 when he was ordered to stop the car on the track, was on course to take pole. He was 3 tenths up on Hamilton's best lap in the second sector, but lost time in the final sector and qualified second, 0.051 seconds behind Hamilton. Räikkönen qualified in fourth, 0.290 seconds off the pole time. In the race, Vettel got a better start than Hamilton from second and was into first position by Turn 1. Max Verstappen, Kimi Räikkönen and Valtteri Bottas tried to go three-wide through Turn 1, but Bottas clipped the inside kerb, hitting Räikkönen, who hit Verstappen. It ended both Räikkönen and Verstappen's race but Bottas was able to continue. Meanwhile, Vettel had stretched the gap to 2.2 seconds over Hamilton by the end of lap 1, but the gap stayed around that margin till Lap 14, when Vettel pitted from the lead for soft tyres, to cover off the undercut threat from Hamilton. He made easy work of passing Daniel Ricciardo, but lost around 4 seconds trying to pass Bottas. Hamilton stayed out till lap 21 and then changed onto a set of mediums, rejoining 7 seconds back. Then the Virtual Safety Car was deployed for the Felipe Massa/Stoffel Vandoorne crash. Hamilton pitted just before the end of the VSC for softs, while Vettel pitted the next lap for mediums. They were side by side at Turn 1, touched wheels and Hamilton was forced off the track and had to fall behind Vettel. However, he got past on Lap 44 and won the race. He thus reduced the gap to Vettel in the Drivers' Championship to 6 points, while Mercedes extended their Constructors' lead to 8 points.