Rosberg back to life with dominant Spain win

Star and winner of the race

You can't give star of the race to anyone else today. After everything Nico Rosberg has been through over the opening races to put in a performance like he did was seriously impressive. A brilliant pole position, a wonderful start, he was never troubled.

Might it have been different if Lewis Hamilton hadn't have lost second place at the start to Sebastian Vettel's Ferrari? Possibly but we'll never know. To my mind at least Rosberg looked to have the edge over his Mercedes team mate in Spain, so I think we can conclude that today was simply Rosberg's day. 

He had looked almost defeated after only four races in which Hamilton had beaten him severely each time out. Lewis was unrelenting and was crushing Nico. At least now Lewis knows he might just get a fight for this world title yet. Rosberg looked so relieved when he got out of the car, and I think many of the fans, even Lewis ones, will rejoice that we might actually get a fight for the title now.

Of course it's too early to say whether that will be the case. It's just one race and I'm sure this result will make Lewis more determined than ever to go flat out to beat Rosberg at the next event. However, the next event is Monaco where Rosberg has won for the past two years. Could this be the start of a title fightback? Monaco will reveal whether this was a flash in a pan or a sustained attack against the Hamilton juggernaut. 

The battles

Hamilton nearly dropped to fourth at the start but just about managed to fend Valtteri Bottas' Williams off to only lose the one position to Vettel. It cost him a potential fourth victory, but it did inspire a great tense battle between the #44 Mercedes and the lead Ferrari.

For lap after lap Hamilton hounded Vettel, although he thought it impossible to pass it didn't stop him trying, but despite being within a second most of the time to enable the DRS he just couldn't quite get alongside to make the move stick. At the first round of pit stops only an ill fitting tyre stopped him getting out ahead of Vettel who pitted one lap later.

It of course meant he was stuck once again but changing to a three stop strategy while most of the field were going with a two stopper vaulted him ahead of Vettel, but while they circled together it was a good fight.

It also showed what I like about DRS, that it can let someone get closer but doesn't always give them an easy pass when the cars are fairly equal. Having said that other battles down the field showed DRS to work a bit too well as the Toro Rosso cars were swamped as their lack of straight line speed left them sitting ducks with clipped wings ready to be rolled into a pancake.

Carlos Sainz and Max Verstappen had loaded on the wing which made them great for overall lap time. They lined up fifth and sixth on the grid, but when the racing started they just couldn't stop people shooting past them. It was to Sainz's credit that he still managed to hold off the Red Bull of Daniil Kvyat on the final lap to finish ninth. Verstappen fell to 11th.

Massa had a good short fight up the order from his ninth starting position. He made a great start but was squeezed out at turn two which dropped him back again, still he made a few decent passes to end up sixth. Kimi also battled his way up with a brilliant opening lap which took him to fifth from seventh. There he stayed until the end of the race despite catching Bottas late on to challenge for fourth, but he couldn't make it count.

The Lotus cars were involved in a few decent scraps too, not least one between them as Romain Grosjean clashed with Pastor Maldonado leaving the Venezuelan with a damaged rear wing. Despite looking strong once again, more contact, probably not his fault admittedly, left him with eventual retirement. It was left to Grosjean to pick up a now traditional eighth place. He's driving well despite a telling off from the team for not taking care of his gearbox. I've a lot of time for Grosjean and would like to see him step up to a bigger team if Lotus don't ascend soon.

All in all it was a fairly entertaining race, but not one that will last in the memory which apart from maybe Malaysia has been true of all the races so far this season. We need a spectacular one soon.
  
Things of note

I found it interesting that a lot was made of Kimi not having all the new tonne of parts that Ferrari brought with them. They were all to be found on the sister car of Vettel. Some in the F1 media are beginning to suspect that Vettel may have a no. 1 status line in his contract, something I'm not sure Kimi is entirely aware of and may find increasingly frustrating.

All in all it wasn't a great day for Ferrari despite their third and fifth result. Vettel ended the day over 45 seconds behind Rosberg. All these updates and it actually looked like they had taken a step backwards.

On the other hand a step forwards from Williams and Red Bull is to be welcomed. Williams were much more on the pace of at least Ferrari, so perhaps that final podium slot might see the red of the Scuderia replaced with the Martini colours of Williams.

Daniel Ricciardo came home seventh for Red Bull which doesn't sound like the best result in the world for a four time championship winning team, but the pace wasn't so bad. They're at least going in the right direction, they just need Renault to get their power unit in full working order.

McLaren looked to be making progress in qualifying with both cars in Q2 for the first time this year. Sadly the race turned out to be a shambles. Jenson Button complained the rear of the car felt like it wasn't connected to the front, these handling difficulties left him trailing in 16th. Alonso fared even worse when brake failure almost resulted in the Spaniard knocking his pit crew to the floor. There was some hope though as he ran as high as seventh at one point and reckoned a couple of points might have been a reward. They are targeting Monaco for a surprise result.

The title chase

Rosberg brought himself to just 20 points off Hamilton's lead in the drivers championship with victory. There's one reason from today's race why I think he's still fighting a battle he can't win. Once Lewis' final stop was done he was about 20 seconds off Nico.

His engineer Pete Bonnington got on the radio and said to turn the car down and just bring it home for second. Hamilton asked if it was possible to catch Rosberg, he was told it wasn't likely. He responded with so it's not impossible? 'Bono' as he is known said it was.

The next lap Lewis laps a second quicker than Rosberg. If there's even a small chance he's going to have a go. Admittedly a few laps later Lewis called off the fight when he realised he couldn't claw back his team mate, but it showed the very essence of the man, he just won't give up. If that situation had been Rosberg, he would have immediately followed his teams advice. 

It's looking more likely that Mercedes have got Ferrari under control for now. Although Vettel keeps on finishing on the podium so he's still up there, he has to start beating both Mercedes again if he's to stand a chance.

The Spanish result will give Rosberg some hope and impetus as he heads to Monaco. As I mentioned he's won for the last two years around the streets of the principality, if he can do it again it's game on, or at least it would be nice to think so.

Result

1. Rosberg - Mercedes
2. Hamilton - Mercedes
3. Vettel - Ferrari
4. Bottas - Williams
5. Raikkonen - Ferrari
6. Massa - Williams
7. Ricciardo - Red Bull
8. Grosjean - Lotus
9. Sainz - Toro Rosso
10. Kvyat - Red Bull
11. Verstappen - Toro Rosso
12. Nasr - Sauber
13. Perez - Force India
14. Ericsson - Sauber
15. Hulkenberg - Force India
16. Button - McLaren
17. Stevens - Manor Marussia
18. Mehri - Manor Marussia
R. Maldonado - Lotus
R. Alonso - McLaren - Brakes

all photo's taken from autosport.com

The Spanish Grand Prix Forecast

Round 5 - Spain, Circuit de Catalunya


Laps - 66

Pirelli Compounds - The Italian tyre firm are bringing their medium and hard ranges to Spain saying that like last year this race is likely to be a two stop strategy.

DRS Zones - As with most tracks there are two zones where the drivers can press their magic button and suddenly they get instant drag reduction, Spain being one of the places where this system was sorely needed. The pit straight and between turns 9 and 10 get these magical passing zones.

Weather - It's looking good for a dry race this weekend, which lets face it, is a bit of a shame. A nice bit of precipitation always makes things that bit more unpredictable. Temperatures will range from 27C to 24C with race day predicted to be on the lower end of that scale.

TV - Live on SkySports F1 with highlights on the BBC (lights out 1pm).

Pick a winner: I want to say Romain Grosjean, mainly for the fact that that would be a bit of turn up for the books. I can't though, I can't even suggest anyone other than Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton. The British driver has been dominant so far this year, I don't think Rosberg has it in him to challenge consistently this year, he's looking nice in the support role. The Ferrari's will be lurking, they're definitely not to be discounted. If you're looking for a real challenge to Lewis, it's got to be either Kimi Raikkonen or Sebastian Vettel.

Hot  Topics:

The Spanish Grand Prix is the first race of the ever shorter European season. Traditionally it's where the first major upgrades are introduced. Ferrari have certainly come with a barrage of developments as they throw money at the car to try to get properly on terms with Mercedes. Mercedes have said they do not want to get into a spending war with the Italian team, but if the Scuderia are suddenly on equal terms I don't think it'll be long before Mercedes open up the cheque book if they want to retain their titles. Having said that I believe Mercedes to have just about enough of an advantage that they won't have to break the bank to stay ahead.

Red Bull have brought major updates, particularly a new nose. However, their power unit partner Renault have decided to focus on reliability rather than performance as they try to get back to the front. Honda haven't used any of their engine development tokens as McLaren try to get away from the back of the grid but they have assured that they have made changes. It'll be interesting to see if there's any shake up of the order but I'd hazard a guess that apart from McLaren maybe moving further towards the top 10 there won't be too many surprises. Of course the most obvious design change at McLaren is their livery, which please judge for yourself. McLaren haven't had a nice livery for a few years now. They still haven't.

Valtteri Bottas is rumoured to have signed a pre-contract with Ferrari. Whether that would be for next season or not is unconfirmed. Of course this has been denied all round. It also leaves Kimi's future uncertain as he looks for the team to take up his option for next year. This could just be the team using Bottas to help keep up Kimi's upturn in performance this year. Watch with interest.

Next years calendar is also bound to be talked about as it was announced that the opening round of the 2016 season in Australia will start on 3rd April fitting in 21 races up to the end of November. It's widely reported that this is meant to show the teams that they could do more races as the season usually starts early to mid march.

Currently the teams feel unable to manage more than 20 races. Personally I think 20 races is more than enough and that the sport would risk saturation. Grand Prix are meant to be special events but now they're just given to anyone with a dodgy human rights record. Ah, it must be the distinct lack of money as Formula 1's commercial rights holders fail to promote the sport in a positive light.

Susie Wolff was in first practice today for Williams finishing just .8 of a second slower than team mate for the morning Felipe Massa. She once again said she is more than capable of being the first woman to race in Formula 1 for 40 years. However, her racing record leaves nothing to be desired. She is a good driver but deserving of being in Formula 1? It was said on Skysports F1 that she would be a trailblazer for women, but surely women and motor sport fans in general would like to see someone whose truly earned her place in the sport by winning championships in junior formulae or at the least a few races. Plenty of men have reached F1 with less desirable back grounds, but would she even be ready to race? She hasn't since 2012. She'd be better off dovetailing her Williams commitments with a program in the WEC or even have a go at Formula E.

Predicting the headlines:

Alonso to get home points for McLaren Honda.

Vettel and Kimi to be close for Ferrari but not quite enough to properly challenge Mercedes.

Hamilton to push Rosberg further into support role.

Maldonado to get a point then crash as he celebrates.

Red Bull updates to help them up the grid but not enough while Renault still struggles.

Under the radar:

Hamilton still hasn't signed a new Mercedes contract. It's been 99.6% done for a while but still they stall. Lewis has made interesting comments recently about growing up loving Ferrari, he's also just take delivery of a new road going Ferrari and said in an interview he'd only know how good he is against Vettel if they were in the same team.

This might all be to pressure Mercedes into accepting what he wants, but they also have the best car at the moment and wouldn't find it hard to replace him. I'm sure they'll stay together, but it's a good rumour.

The title chase:

There needs to be someone pushing Lewis into the pack if this title battle is to come alive. I think Vettel is the most likely challenger, Rosberg is nearly defeated. Unless he can win in Spain or in Monaco where he has admittedly won the last two years, then I don't think he'll be launching a championship move this season.

Ferrari have thrown lots of new parts at the car, so if Vettel and Kimi can get closer we might have a fight on our hands. Practice seemed to show Ferrari at least within striking distance, but it was Lewis leading the way once again. He's in a serene state of mind, nothing can trouble him.

all photos from autosport.com

Hamilton beats faster Rosberg in tense Spanish Grand Prix

In a season where one team has such an advantage it’s crucial for the two drivers in that team to put on a show for victory. For the second time in three races, Nico Rosberg looked the faster driver, the one who was about to seize the championship initiative away from his three consecutive victory team mate Lewis Hamilton.

Like in Bahrain Rosberg had the edge, he hung back during the first stint, pitting a few laps after Lewis who’d put on the faster medium compound. Rosberg went to the harder tyre, knowing that Lewis would have to run those tyres in the final stint while he would be on the faster tyre, closing and closing ready to attack in the final laps.

Hamilton had blasted away from his fourth pole position of the season and looked in the early laps like he was just going to cruise away as he stretched out a gap. But Rosberg and his side of the garage had other ideas. They knew to keep a gap, look after the tyres and just keep close enough as they decided to change strategy.

It had almost worked in Bahrain and it almost worked again. The German kept on closing on Lewis and in the last few laps had closed to within a second. The tension was incredible as the two Mercedes circled together, the radio messages from Lewis Hamilton particularly adding to the excitement as he struggled with his tyres as the race came down to the final few laps.

Rosberg had DRS in the last laps but despite some traffic getting in the way of Hamilton he just could not get close enough and Hamilton crossed the line to take his fourth win of the year and finally take the championship lead his victories have deserved. But always there is Rosberg, just behind. Despite the 4-1 victory ratio in favour of Hamilton, Rosberg is only three points behind and is never too far away. It’s perfectly possible this championship could go down to the wire and lottery of double points in Abu Dhabi.

There still seemed to be a slight degree of warmth after the race had finished between the two team mates but at the same time it was noticeable there wasn’t a lot of talking between them before the podium. As the season wears on there is certainly going to be some intra-team tension not just from the drivers but their engineers and mechanics too. As observed in the Sky commentary the radio messages to the drivers were like they were racing against another team, not the guy across the garage and that’s just going to create more a combustible atmosphere. Lewis may hold the upper hand at the moment but it can all change, Rosberg was probably the faster driver today and if he can capitalise on that speed soon it may unnerve Hamilton a bit.

For all his perceived dominance at the moment Lewis is only three points ahead with 14 races remaining, plenty of time for Rosberg to mount a challenge back at Lewis. Lewis himself says he feels he is 'struggling' sometimes compared to Rosberg. Looking at it from the other side though, at times it must seem that whatever he does, even when he’s quicker, Hamilton still manages to maintain an edge and that must have a negative psychological effect.

Rosberg must know that if not for the mechanical failure in Australia, Hamilton would likely have won the first five races. That’s got to be pretty galling when you know you’re in the fastest car by a significant margin yet your shot at the championship is being trampled on by your team mate. It should come as no surprise as Hamilton is probably the most naturally gifted driver out there and seems to be working harder than ever. With Lewis on this form and while he is happy on the outside of the car too, it’s going to be very difficult for Rosberg. He needs to start winning from the next race in Monaco like he did last year if he wants to turn the tide before the year is out.

Nearly fifty seconds behind the dominant Mercedes duo came Daniel Ricciardo in the Red Bull. It was another impressive weekend from the Australian as he once again beat his world champion team mate Sebastian Vettel. He qualified third and after undercutting Valtteri Bottas at the first stops changed to a two stop strategy that enabled him to run to a lonely first proper podium.

However, driver of the day surely has to be Vettel, he was quite brilliant and showed just why he’s been world champion so many times in his short career. He had a wretched start to his weekend with barely any laps in Friday practice due to some faulty wiring which necessitated a complete change. He got into Q3 on Saturday only for his car to suffer a gearbox failure which meant a further five place grid penalty for having to change it.

He started 15^th but didn’t make the best of starts yet still managed to end up 14^th at the end of the first lap. Progress was slow as the Red Bull still doesn’t have maximum power and they rarely set up their cars for straight line speed. You could see it even when he had DRS open on the start finish straight. Instead he used the shorter DRS zone between turns nine and ten to make controlled lunges around several cars. His moves on Esteban Gutierrez, Kevin Magnussen, Kimi Raikkonen and finally Valtteri Bottas were all executed perfectly as he pushed hard on an aggressive three stop strategy.

His first stop was the earliest of anyone as he got into some clean air and launched himself up the field. His was the most successful three stopper out of anyone, for instance Felipe Massa’s just didn’t work for him ending up 13^th for Williams from ninth on the grid.

For Vettel to end up fourth with the fastest lap and just 25 seconds away from his team mate despite an extra stop and having to fight his way past a lot of cars was a great drive. I just hope he can get a proper clean weekend as it seems to be mostly his Red Bull afflicted with problems. This is not to take anything away from Ricciardo who’s driving brilliantly, but we have not seen the best of Vettel yet this year. With the Red Bull improving it’s only a matter of time before we do.

My other driver of the day has to be Romain Grosjean for Lotus. As his team mate Pastor Maldonado once again showed how good he is at encouraging his team to speed up the replacement parts process, Grosjean showed that his good form from last year has not gone away. A great fifth on the grid and an equally brilliant showing to secure eighth place and four points despite suffering from a myriad of problems including a sensor failure that looked like giving him a temporarily down on power Renault engine when the Ferrari’s swept past him.

On this current form Lotus will soon be once again a regular points troubler after a torrid start to the year. Renault is predicting that Canada will be the first race they can have their power unit at 100% which can only be a good thing for the Renault teams competitiveness. Red Bull particularly will look forward to adding power to what is actually probably the best chassis on the grid despite Mercedes dominance.

Finally, finally Kimi Raikkonen gave us a performance to show that he can match Fernando Alonso at Ferrari. He out qualified him and held him off valiantly for most of the race although in the end Alonso managed to squeeze through with a few laps remaining. However, Alonso was on a three stop strategy to Kimi’s two and had much fresher tyres to overtake him with.

I thought it an odd race for Ferrari strategy wise. It’s generally accepted that the car ahead in the race will get priority on when to pit. In this race as in most others, it is more advantageous to stop first and gain track position by using the fresher and therefore faster tyres. In Spain today despite being behind Kimi it seemed Ferrari employed a strategy to get Alonso ahead which surely the Finn can’t be happy with?

At the first stops Fernando pitted first with Kimi in a lap later. It was only due to traffic on Alonso’s out lap that prevented him from getting ahead of Kimi. At the second round of stops despite Kimi having pulled a bit of a gap, Alonso again got first call. Now at this point it’s fair to say due to the position they were in and the cars close proximity the team decided to split strategies. Ultimately Kimi pitted for a second time several laps after Alonso but had track position when Alonso stopped for the third and final time.

However the fresher rubber allowed him to close very quickly and eventually pass a defensively robust Raikkonen. In the end the cars were separated by not very much so splitting the strategies didn’t really harm the cars overall results for the team as they finished sixth and seventh, but it didn’t put Alonso in front whereas if they remained on the same strategy Kimi would have come out on top at the Spaniard’s home race for the first time this year. Interesting I thought.

Valtteri Bottas completed the top five for Williams with another strong drive. It had looked like he might have been on for a podium as he ran third in the opening laps but failure to cover Ricciardo’s first stop meant he fell behind and his two stop strategy left him victim to the flying Vettel.

The Spanish race is the traditional point for a number of upgrades and can shake up the grid from the opening flyaway races. It certainly appears that after Mercedes, Red Bull have used their financial muscle and are now the clear second best team with Ferrari and Williams scrapping for third. This race it appeared that Force India was the big loser compared to their previous results as they could only just manage a ninth and tenth. Force India has never shown brilliantly in Spain so it may be just a blip although Nico Hulkenberg was meant to have complained that the team had hardly shown up with anything new. Sergio Perez outraced Hulkenberg to be the lead driver in the team.

Sauber’s new light weight car offered them no encouragement while McLaren are buried in the midfield. Jenson Button might have dragged them in to the top 10 of qualifying but he was nowhere in the race. Kevin Magnussen must have thought he was going to have a rookie year of Lewis Hamilton proportions after his podium in Australia, but since then McLaren have looked lost and don’t seem able to control their tyres as for them to get the best out of the rubber is particularly temperature sensitive. Toro Rosso also look to have dropped back a bit, Daniil Kvyat couldn’t continue his scoring run but was still quicker than his reliability troubled team mate Jean-Eric Vergne who already could be fighting for his 2015 seat.

Marussia look to have made progress and could be able to attack the lower end of the midfield. Jules Bianchi was impressive in the race while Max Chilton should be very happy he out-qualified his Ferrari young driver team mate by six tenths. Caterham were nowhere despite Kamui Kobayashi’s efforts.

So once again we are off to Monaco in two weeks time. Monaco can be an anomaly of a race, with results that sometimes you wouldn’t expect, for the championship Rosberg knows wherever he finishes it has to be ahead of Hamilton. But I think it’ll be the first circuit where we might legitimately expect a proper challenge to Mercedes, or at least for them to be nearer to the rest of the field. I’m going for a Sebastian Vettel win. What? It’ll make a change…

Result:

1. Lewis Hamilton - Mercedes

2. Nico Rosberg - Mercedes

3. Daniel Ricciardo - Red Bull

4. Sebastian Vettel - Red Bull

5. Valtteri Bottas - Williams

6. Fernando Alonso - Ferrari

7. Kimi Raikkonen - Ferrari

8. Romain Grosjean - Lotus

9. Sergio Perez - Force India

10. Nico Hulkenberg - Force India

11. Jenson Button - McLaren

12. Kevin Magnussen - McLaren

13. Felipe Massa - Williams

14. Daniil Kvyat - Toro Rosso

15. Pastor Maldonado - Lotus

16. Esteban Gutierrez - Sauber

17. Adrian Sutil - Sauber

18. Jules Bianchi - Marussia

19. Max Chilton - Marussia

20. Marcus - Ericsson - Caterham

R. Kamui Kobayashi - Caterham - Brakes

R. Jean-Eric Vergne - Toro Rosso - Exhaust

all photo's taken from autosport.com

Spanish Forecast

This weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix is set to be one of the most interesting races of the year so far. As the start of the European season it is traditional that after the opening fly-away races the teams bring a whole load of updates to their cars. After the Chinese race the cars returned to the factories for the first time in two months therefore this race presents the first real opportunity to see if anyone will be able to catch the current dominators of the sport, Mercedes.

The circuit de Catalunya near Barcelona is a real test of the cars with its long straight, fast, medium and slow speed corners, it has everything you need to tell whether your car has a flaw or not. It’s often said that if your car goes well here, it’ll do well pretty much everywhere. Then again Fernando Alonso won the race last year and then faded away so who really knows.

This year there are two DRS zones, one on the start finish straight and one between turns nine and ten, the second one seemed a bit short last year but we’ll see how it goes, it would at least help move them in a position to attack down the start finish straight a few corners later. Pirelli are taking the medium and hard compounds. Degradation is traditionally high in Spain because of its long corners and abrasive surface but with these compounds you’d hope it wouldn’t be more than a three stopper.

The weather is meant to be nice and hot all weekend with temperatures reaching around 24C. This could help teams such as McLaren get their tyres up to temperature a lot easier so we could see the Woking team slightly revitalised after a couple of very poor weekends for the team where they haven’t scored any points at all.

But who can really challenge the Mercedes team? Well all the engine manufacturers will have been working feverishly to bring some updates to the power units. The engines have been homologated which basically means they can’t do updates which specifically target performance. However, they can working on the software and work with the fuel companies to provide a boost. Renault are confident they will have made significant progress.

Which is good news for Red Bull as if any team is going to be taking on the Mercedes cars it’s them. Red Bull have once again designed a fantastic car, the main problem right now is the Renault engine holding them back. Undoubtedly the team will be bringing upgrades of their own but if Renault can at least get close to Mercedes then Red Bull will be firmly back in the hunt for victories.

Whether this means Sebastian Vettel can start getting back on terms with Daniel Ricciardo is another matter? The World Champion needs a result against his younger team mate, but first he needs the car underneath him and in his control. I wonder if the upgrades Red Bull are bringing will be targeted at making Vettel more comfortable in the car so he can unleash the speed that is still there. But if Vettel is more comfortable then there’s nothing to say Ricciardo can’t exploit the car just as well.

With a Renault upgrade the team to watch could well be Lotus. They’ve had an exceptionally poor start to the season which could be about to change. I by no means think they’re going to be challenging for podiums but Romain Grosjean was on for a point or two in China before he retired which after qualifying on the back row of the grid at the first round is quite the progression. Despite Pastor Maldonado winning here a few years back, Grosjean is the driver to watch, his form from the end of the last year hasn’t disappeared and I believe when the opportunity comes he’ll be the Lotus driver to take it.

Sauber have taken 20kg off their overweight car so hope to be the team least likely to join the disappointing Marussia and Caterham’s in Q1.  Hopefully the likes of Force India and Williams won’t start getting left behind by the upgrades to the bigger teams. Especially for Williams who have not taken advantage of their early season pace to record anything like the results they should have had. At least for Force India they have managed to grab a podium, although in Nico Hulkenberg’s eyes I’m sure he thinks the wrong driver picked it up as he has been the pace setter at every race but the one Sergio Perez picked up the podium at.

I’m beginning to think if Ferrari don’t offer significant improvement at this race then Fernando Alonso will be looking to get out of his Ferrari contract. Mercedes seem to think Ferrari are their biggest threat which I disagree with but like Renault, the Ferrari power unit will have been worked on to find ways of improvement for fuel consumption and driveability. The improvements that the team are bringing have got to move them closer to the front and offer Kimi Raikkonen a solution to the problems he has driving the F14T. If Kimi isn’t closer to Alonso then I think any upgrades will have failed because if the car is easier to drive then generally the drivers are closer as there is less problems to drive around.

I do expect Ferrari and particularly Red Bull in qualifying to offer more of a challenge, but can Mercedes be beaten yet? I don’t think so, they’ve barely had to open the taps and they won’t have been resting on their laurels at all. Obviously the opposition have more to gain as they are that far behind but Mercedes have a lot of clever people. So who do I tip to win? Well Nico Rosberg was stronger than Lewis Hamilton last year in Spain. I don’t think that will be the case this year, Lewis is just in total harmony with this car and seems to have Rosberg covered at the moment. I'm going with Vettel to get a surprise pole position, Hamilton to win, the Red Bull’s and Alonso to mix it with Rosberg with a Williams, Force India and McLaren lurking in the background. And a Grosjean ready to get a point, probably battling rookie of the year so far Daniil Kvyat.

all photo's taken from autosport.com

Alonso jubilant with commanding home win

Five red lights on, the roar of the engines reaches deafening proportions, lights out and twenty-two Formula 1 cars streak away in a flash towards the first corner at the Circuit de Catalunya. The blood red Ferrari of Fernando Alonso makes another exceptional start from 5^th on the grid, but space around him closes down, Sebastian Vettel then Kimi Raikkonen force him to the outside into turn 1.

Alonso is a fighter and he fought brilliantly from the beginning. Kimi got tucked up behind Lewis Hamilton into turn 2, enabling the Ferrari to edge onto the outside of the Lotus then with the momentum with him he stayed on the outside of Hamilton’s Mercedes and was into third place, immediately hooking himself on to the back of Sebastian Vettel’s Red Bull.

It was a great move and put him right into the mix of the lead battle. Nico Rosberg was heading the pack from pole position but the Mercedes’ perennial problem of tyre degradation struck again almost immediately. Rosberg was like a cork in a bottle, with a queue of cars headed by Vettel and Alonso behind him only broken up by Hamilton’s similarly suffering car.

Ferrari needed to act and brought him in on lap 10 before Rosberg and Vettel, when they stopped a lap later Alonso was able to split them. Lap 13 he uses all his KERS, opens the DRS and dives around the outside of Rosberg to take the lead.

It wasn’t all done and dusted though, Kimi Raikkonen was getting stronger as the race went on and move himself into a position where he looked like he might just be able to knick it. He was on a three stop strategy with Alonso making four, but as the race went on Alonso took all the grip he could to maintain a lead and close gaps as the strategies played out. Eventually as he made his final stop (while suffering a slow puncture) he was over 10 seconds clear of the Lotus and on fresher tyres; the race was over.

Fernando was jubilant as took his 2^nd Spanish Grand Prix victory, stopping to pick up a Spanish flag which contravened regulations but the stewards chose common sense over stupidity and didn’t penalise him.

It launches him right back into the title fight after a poor Bahrain race, and with Red Bull not showing wonderful pace today, Alonso will be getting increasingly confident. In truth Alonso could have won at least another race so far this year and been on the podium in the other, he’s looking formidable in this kind of exceptional form; but we expect no less.

Tyre degradation again, Mercedes plummet, Red Bull complain

There were more complaints over the tyres this weekend. It’s an argument that doesn’t seem to stop; my main thought on the matter is that it’s the same rules for everyone so you build your car accordingly.

It’s simply not good enough to have a car which can be fast in qualifying then not be able to manage them in the race. Surely the race is the main point. I certainly do take on board the various points about Formula 1 being about speed not tyre conservation, and I think perhaps it’s gone a bit too far.

Today for instance we had four stop strategies and I don’t think that’s a good thing, it just makes the races slightly too convoluted and a bit gimmicky rather than a test of true strategy. It was still a fairly exciting race, but I think seeing the cars pass each other so easily as their strategies played out actually took away from cars racing side by side. It’s all over in an instant with no chance to fight back.

However, it’s not like it hasn’t happened before, in the Turbo era of the 80s cars ran to strict fuel conservation rules, in various other eras you’ve always had to look after the tyres, although not to quite this extent. In fact the only era which has been full on maximum attack is when you could refuel and had Bridgestone tyres which were made to last forever. But you worked to those rules like everyone else did.

In fact as I was writing, Pirelli boss Paul Hembery has said they are considering changes to the tyres to ensure that four stop strategies will be a thing of the past by the British Grand Prix. However, not all teams are in favour fearing this will favour Red Bull who most suspect are restrained by the tyres not letting them exploit their ultimate pace. We’ll see what happens.

If Pirelli do change anything further (they already have with their hard tyre) then it should only be a slight adjustment, just so the drivers can push that bit harder. Whether that would stop the likes of Mercedes destroying their tyres is another matter.

Over one lap the silver cars are fantastic, as Rosberg and Hamilton locked out the front row. But consistently over the years they just chew them up almost from the start. Hamilton could do nothing today as he fell back to 12^th while Rosberg controlled his first stint well to head the field before falling back to what was quite a decent 6^th and on a three stopper to boot.

Vettel blamed his cars lack of kisses and cuddles for his tyres as he couldn’t maintain Ferrari’s or Lotus’ race pace and dropped back to fourth from third. He looked to be a contender at first but as the race developed he couldn’t maintain the pace. This is through no lack of speed from the Red Bull, just the way they nurture the rubber. He still leads the title chase though, and Red Bull haven’t won three years consecutively for nothing, they’ll sort it out.

His team mate Mark Webber on the other hand made his trademark poor start to drop out of the top 10 but then made decent gains from there. He stopped early for clear air and brought himself back into play to end the day only 10 seconds behind his team mate.

McLaren supply the upgrades which fail to deliver

McLaren have been nowhere in the first four races, and at least on the evidence of Spain, they’re still nowhere. Now they’ve only just fitted these latest updates and will be continuing to upgrade the car over the coming races.

I thought that perhaps they might get a little nearer the front, but they were still outpaced by Force India and also looked dangerously close to being eclipsed by Toro Rosso too. Jenson Button was having a torrid time, failing to make Q3 and then complaining about the balance from the start. It was quite some effort and a worthy performance that he dragged his car up to 8^th by the finish.

Sergio Perez finished a close 9^th, and was generally the more impressive McLaren driver of the weekend. He managed to drag the car into the top 10 in qualifying and was hanging out near 6^th/7^th for a long time before dropping back a bit. Still I found it amusing that McLaren radioed Perez to tell him to not to hurt the tyres by fighting with Button as he caught him hand over fist.

Of course I’m sure it was just for tyre preservation purposes from the team that let their drivers fight and not at all a coded team order with memories of Bahrain still fresh.

Anyway, they’ll be glad to get a double points finish but 8^th and 9^th are not the positions they should be fighting for. McLaren usually develop well over the season but let’s not forget so do other teams. They need a really major step if they aren’t just going to stagnate in the midfield.

They really shouldn’t be in this situation in the first place, it does point to some rather odd choices being made with their design for 2013, especially with a major rules overhaul in 2014. But then again, McLaren do have a history of designing duds after producing pace setting cars, but a team with their strict philosophies shouldn’t be making the same mistakes as often as they do.

No gains for Williams while Gutierrez shines for Sauber

It seems strange that two of the main surprise packages of last year have slumped so badly. Sauber have only grabbed a few points while Williams are yet to even get on the board.

Could it be that with fast cars last year they neglected to focus much on 2013 as 

they battled for constructor’s positions. They both had cars that at times were capable of wins, perhaps this sudden shot at glory fuelled to develop more for that current season and take their eye off this year, or even that confidence has pushed them down avenues they might not have ventured down before.

For Williams this race couldn’t have provided a starker contrast. Last year pole and victory, this year they didn’t even make it out of Q1 and made little progress in the race.

Sauber fared little better, suffering a stop-go penalty for unsafe release of Nico Hulkenberg who tagged the rear of Jean-Eric Vergne’s Toro Rosso eventually causing it’s retirement.

I thought Esteban Gutierrez had a good race; starting 19^th after suffering a grid penalty he set fastest lap and even took the lead for a few laps as he stayed out the longest in the opening stint. He nearly managed to grab the final point, but I think he can be satisfied with his 11^th place, first time he looked like a proper Grand Prix driver.

Kimi ecstatic and rest of the top 10

Kimi Raikkonen was a disappointed man as he finished second for the third consecutive race, notching up his fourth podium from five races. To be fair it just shows he wants to win, I reckon he could have if he’d not dropped a place at the start.

Ideally he’d have been ahead of Vettel into the first corner and then his three stopper might have worked as he’d have been in control of the four stoppers through track position. Still he closed the gap to Vettel in the title fight, just four points separate them.

Felipe Massa didn’t quite have the pace of Alonso, but he still made some great moves to lift his Ferrari from 9^th on the grid (he qualified 6^th but had a 3 place penalty for impeding Webber in Q2) to finish on the podium for the first time this year, a result he’s deserved for his performances so far this season. With this double podium Ferrari are looking in great form for the rest of the season.

Paul di Resta wasn't noticed much by the camera's but he had a good drive to 7th in his Force India. It probably should have been 6th as he hounded Rosberg in the closing laps but he couldn't quite make the move. Still, he's in impressive form as his team mate suffered pit stop problems and failed to get higher than 13th.

Daniel Ricciardo took the final point with a quietly efficient performance holding off Gutierrez in the final laps. The Toro Rosso’s had good pace all weekend and qualified only just outside the top 10. Spain is when all the teams bring their first major upgrades and apart from Caterham, Toro Rosso were the only team to move themselves up the order.

Well I say Caterham but even with their upgrades they were still over a second away from the lower midfield. But they beat the Marussia’s, although disgraced themselves by allowing Geido van der Garde to continue despite not securing a wheel on properly.

On to Monaco

The championship battle already looks like it might be boiling down to three contenders with Vettel, Kimi and Alonso locking out all the wins so far this year. It’s another title battle that looks like it could go all the way to the wire, but this time I expect Kimi to be still well up there by the time we reach Brazil.

However, Monaco I expect to see a slight break. Now I’m made a rash over simplification here, but if the Mercedes had a strength in Spain apart from it’s one lap pace it was in the final twisty traction orientated sector. If they can locked out the front row again, Ross Brawn thinks Monaco isn’t as tough on tyres, Mercedes might just be about to crash the victory party.

It’s not unknown for a bad car to be sublime around the barrier lined streets of the principality, anyone for Jenson Button to bring McLaren some cheer? Or even Sergio Perez who looks to be getting better by the race.

If we’re going for our top three, I’m going for Kimi to even the victory score and put himself top of the championship table. It’s only two weeks away before we find out.

LAT & XPB photo's taken from autosport.com, all others from planetf1.com 

Maldonado takes Williams back to the top

Pastor Maldonado took his first Formula 1 victory for Williams-Renault today and became the first ever Venezuelan to top the podium. It was also the team’s first win since the Brazilian Grand Prix in 2004. It was quite an incredible drive resulting in the fifth different driver and manufacturer to win a race from the first five races, something not seen since 1983.

Fire in the garage

However, this amazing story today was soured by a freak fuel explosion in the Williams garage about an hour after the race. Just after the team had had a celebratory team photo taken, fuel somehow ignited. While watching the BBC F1 forum you could see thick black smoke pouring out the back of the garage.

It was quickly under control, but team members from Williams, Force India and Caterham have reported injuries to a few team members who helped tackle the blaze. So far it thankfully looks like they escaped anything too serious.

The fight for victory

Before this incident though, the Williams team were revelling in the glory of victory and the brilliance of Maldonado. He’s been involved in a few incident in his short Formula 1 career and been labelled wild and a pay driver.

Admittedly he comes with a whole heap of Venezuelan money, and his crash on the last lap in Australia this year while chasing Fernando Alonso kept up his wild man rep, but if ever there was a performance that highlighted just how quick he can be, especially this year, then this was it.

He inherited pole position after Lewis Hamilton was disqualified for not having enough fuel to take a sample but Pastor looked relaxed before the race, and he wasn’t being cagey about what result he wanted.

He realised he had a chance of winning, it’s that kind of season, and he exploited this fully. However, at the start he had the Ferrari of Alonso alongside him into the first corner and made a wise decision to let him go.

After the first lap he was 1.3 seconds behind Alonso, but Maldonado was going to make a race of this, the very next lap Maldonado brought the gap down.

Williams looked like they were playing it cautious in the first round of pit stops, playing into the hands of the bigger teams like Sauber had done with Ferrari in Malaysia and Lotus with Red Bull in Bahrain. Maldonado pitted a lap later than Alonso on lap 12 and they looked content to cover what Alonso did.

Maldonado stuck close and was unrelenting in his pursuit; Alonso couldn’t drop Pastor. Coming up to the second stops Maldonado went on the attack.

Williams brought him in on lap 25 before Alonso this time and got him out on fresh tyres and into clear air. Alonso was delayed by Charles Pic in the Marussia, but stayed out two laps longer which seemed a fairly fundamental mistake.

Perhaps Ferrari wanted to be sure they’d be on fresher rubber come the end of the race, but despite passing being significantly easier these days track position is still king and Alonso had just lost it. As Maldonado shot through on the start finish straight, the Spaniard was only just exiting and was over 6 seconds behind.

It wasn’t all over for Pastor, Alonso doesn’t give up without hassling and getting a few punches in first. He maintained the gap for a while, but the Ferrari started gaining putting the pressure and the gap was down to three seconds when the Williams pitted for the last time on lap 42.

It was a slow stop, but he again exited on fresh tyres and in clean air, until he caught Kimi. Alonso dearly wanted to win again in front of his home crowd and kept on coming at him, he’d looked after his tyres well and pitted three laps later to exit close behind.

 

They both passed Kimi quickly who had yet to stop, with Alonso right on the back of Maldonado. For all the world it looked like Alonso was about to make the move to win. But it never quite came, the DRS was open but Maldonado wasn’t rattled and remained just out of reach.

Ferrari were obviously hoping that the Williams’ tyres were about to drop off, they’d not had to do a 25 lap stint before, and with three laps extra life they thought they’d be ahead of the fight by the end. However, they dropped out of contention with four laps to go as Alonso’s tyres went off first leaving 

Maldonado safe to take a fantastic win for Sir Frank Williams 70^th birthday.

Maldonado displayed a fantastic maturity and grabbed his moment well, he really earned it the right way.

Ferrari looked to have the opportunity to be the first team to claim a second win, the updates they brought certainly helped Alonso, Massa not so much who qualified 16^th, got a great start, fought around the top 10, got a drive through penalty and finished 15^th. Not a good day after the progress he’d made in Bahrain.

But Fernando enjoyed the weekend, he qualified well and altogether looked a far more competitive proposition but I think Ferrari believed they would beat Williams and didn’t factor in that they’d have to earn it first.

Perhaps if they’d covered Maldonado after the 2^nd stop to try and maintain track position they’d have been able to control the race, but it wasn’t to be and in fact Kimi Raikkonen in the Lotus nearly caught him on the last lap. Still Alonso is now joint championship leader and Ferrari are on the up.

Lotus maintain consistency but could they have won?

As we know the tyres are affected by all sorts of circumstance such as temperature and track surface, but despite this many people predicted a Kimi victory today after both Lotus’ displayed good race pace in Friday practice. But it was colder today, perhaps explaining why they couldn’t extract the pace they thought they had. 

Anyway after the start Kimi shot into third place from fourth and from then on actually ran a pretty lonely race. The expected challenge never materialised although after the final stops he had a lot fresher tyres than the two ahead of him, and almost caught Alonso towards the end, but I think the team may view this as another missed opportunity.

They certainly seemed a bit conservative with strategy. Grosjean backed Kimi up well with fourth place, he made a poor start from third but still managed to achieve a respectable result. Lotus surely have to be the next manufacturer to get a win, so far they’ve probably been the most consistent, look out for them in Monaco, especially Kimi who surely has to be a championship contender now?

Hamilton charges from the back

McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton was astoundingly quick in qualifying and took pole position by over half a second. Although we’ve seen McLaren drop away on race day over the last couple of races you have to believe he’d have been a significant challenger for victory.

His chance was taken from him after a team error in which the car wasn’t fuelled enough to get back to the pits after his pole lap. This was already contravening regulations which state the car must be able to return to the pits and have a litre of fuel left over to be tested. The punishment to disqualify him and send him back to the grid was harsh, perhaps send him to the back of Q3, but the whole grid?

Anyway despite this, Lewis maintained a positive outlook and said he’d ‘drive his heart out’. But he must be becoming frustrated with some of the basic mistakes his team are making? He’s not under contract next year…just saying.

Despite another troubled pit stop, Lewis was great today. From last on the grid he was the only one to make a two stop strategy work, looking after one set of tyres for nearly half the race. He made some great passes on Senna, Massa and particularly the Toro Rosso’s.

He cut past Daniel Ricciardo just after turn 3 to split them then dived around the outside of turn 4 to set himself up with the inside line at turn 5 to get past Jean-Eric Vergne, brilliant stuff. Despite fading tyres at the end which lost him a place to Vettel he was challenging Rosberg for 7^th. A great drive to 8^th was his reward today but it could have been so much better.

Tyres make championship challengers become bit-part players

Jenson Button started 14 places higher and ended up 9^th a place behind Lewis. Not a good day for him and one of many drivers who complained of being baffled by why they didn’t have the speed or why they couldn’t make the tyres work as well as others.

Mark Webber for Red Bull was 11^th and was another one to wonder why he just didn’t have the speed. It’s a mark of the season how managing the tyres can make previous race winners and even championship leaders just bit part players at the very next race.

Sebastian Vettel joined Webber in not understanding why Red Bull switched the front wings over, but apparently it was because they were losing down force from them. Vettel hadn’t set a time in Q3 and so started 7^th. He didn’t make a great start but was running 6^th by lap 19 after pitting early to find some clean air.

However his afternoon turned into a comeback drive after being given a drive through penalty for failing to slow down at yellow flags. He fought back wonderfully with some superb moves against Button, Hamilton and Rosberg that yielded him a final result of 6^th. It kept him in a joint championship lead, but his disappointment was clear to see after the race.

I think they’d all like a more consistent tyre so they know where they stand rather than the lottery we have now, but it does result in a great show.

The Schumacher-Senna incident

Michael Schumacher had another terrible race, this time he crashed into the back of Bruno Senna’s Williams taking them both out. Schumacher has argued that Senna changed direction in the braking zone which took him unawares. Certainly Senna does move just before turn 1 to the right just as Schumacher did the same to try and take the outside line, but to me it looked like a racing incident.

However it is Schumacher’s responsibility as the car behind to avoid that sort of contact, and as a result has been given a five place grid penalty for Monaco, while Senna’s day got worse after his car was damaged by the fire in the Williams garage.

Rest of the top 10

Kamui Kobayashi had a starring role today and deservedly took 5^th making some aggressive moves, especially on Button; giving him a slight tap on his way past. His team mate Perez retired but was never in it after suffering a puncture when Grosjean hit him on the opening lap.

Nico Rosberg finished up 7^th after making a good start but faded badly towards the end of the race when he was passed by Kobayashi and Vettel near the end. Nico Hulkenberg rounded out the top 10 and put up a great defence of the final point, refusing to give into Mark Webber.

So that was it for Spain, it was another race for of unpredictable twists and turns and yet another winner in this 2012 season. Next up is Monaco, always a highlight in the Formula 1 calendar. We head to the Mediterranean knowing that Williams are back, no one has control over the tyres, the top seven drivers are separated by less than a race win and no one can predict who’ll win; something to look forward to then.

all photo's taken from autosport.com