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 15th but didn’t make the best of
starts yet still managed to end up 14th 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 13th 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
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