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