Sunday 12 May 2013

Spanish Grand Prix: Ferrari back on top

The Spanish Grand Prix wasn't the most exciting race this season, with relatively predictable results and very little incident. The usual suspects performed well, Red Bull having quite a mediocre race, but finishing in fourth and fifth, and Alonso, dominating the precedings. Massa was in close range of Alonso and fought well against the very quick Lotus of Kimi Raikonnen. Alonso ran an impeccable race, extending his lead when he needed to, to give himself time for his pit stop. Really, all the action came in the first few corners of the first lap, which is also, arguably, where the race was won by Alonso

Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel, were extremely aggressive at the start and displayed their desire to take the win by challenging the Mercedes drivers straight away. Hamilton succumbed almost immediately, clearly unable to get anything like competitive pace out of his racecar, from the very beginning. He finished in twelth place and will be terribly frustrated to finish ten places lower than what he qualified, without experiencing any incidents or technical issues. Rosberg had better luck holding off his rivals in the opening laps, but eventually he also had to concede to faster competitors. It is incomprehensible how much slower Mercedes are in race set up to qualifying set up. The team are going to have to work hard to bring the race pace in to syncronisation with the qualifying pace.

McLaren were also well off the pace and struggled just to finish inside the top ten. Button was eighth and Perez was ninth. They found themselves fighting with teams like Toro Rosso and Williams, which is a massive fall for them, in comparison to last season. On the plus side, as I've said before, it brings the likes of Williams, Sauber, Toro Rosso and of course Force India, in to the top ten battle. The teams are very close this season and the tyres serve to mix things up even more.

Force India appeared to be racing further down the pack, which was slightly disappointing, as I have been extremely impressed by their efforts in the opening stages of the season. Paul Di Resta put in a good fight near the end, to try and steal sixth place off Nico Rosberg, but it wasn't to be. I just hope they can be back in the hunt next weekend and back to the kind of form they showed in the first four races. All in all, a great and emotional result, for one of the best drivers in the sport.