Verstappen has tyre disadvantage as Ferrari can opt for alternative strategy

Verstappen qualified in third place for today's Spanish Grand Prix. However, the Dutchman has one fewer set of fresh tyres available to him than his rivals. Along with two sets of hard tyres, he has one set of used mediums and three sets of used softs at his disposal.

Meanwhile, after Ferrari completed some runs on the medium tyres in Q1, the team has a fresh set of softs available for the race, unlike the other frontrunning teams.

The Mercedes and McLaren drivers, including pole sitter Lando Norris and championship leader Kimi Antonelli, all have two sets of fresh hards and one set of fresh mediums available for the upcoming race.

In its possible race strategies, the Italian manufacturer predicts that both a one-stop and a two-stop strategy could be used today. Teams and drivers can start on either the soft or medium tyres before deciding whether to use one or both of their fresh sets of hard tyres later on.

Looking ahead, Hamilton was unable to say what tyre degradation will be like for Ferrari today. He told GPblog, among others: "We sometimes go to hot places and deg is okay, and then sometimes it's not okay. When you go to like Austria, for example, it's hot and our deg was terrible, so I really have no idea what to expect tomorrow. I'm just going to have fun, that’s all I can say.

"It's just going to have real fun, not put too much pressure on it. The fact is, the guys that we're competing with, one of them is ahead of us, particularly, they're just quicker. And so we're going to just try and do our best to hold on," he concluded.