Hamilton Beats Rosberg to Spanish Victory

Lewis Hamilton beat team mate Nico Rosberg to the chequered flag in Spain, in a closely fought battle between the two Mercedes drivers. The win in Spain, being Hamilton’s fourth of the season sees the British driver lead the Championship after five races as Formula One returned to Europe.

The two Mercedes’ had a closely fought battle towards the end of the race, much like their duel in Bahrain with both drivers having alternate tyre strategies. Nico Rosberg having the fresher tyres whittled down Hamilton’s lead to a mere 0.6 seconds before the final lap where a lock up meant that his challenge for the race win was over. Although it was not all smooth running for Hamilton as throughout the race he had a few heated exchanges with his engineer over the condition of his tyres and the marbling of the tyres.

Daniel Ricciardo continued his impressive start to his Red Bull career by finishing third, although it was clear how far ahead the two Mercedes cars were as he finished almost a minute behind them. He finished a further 30 seconds ahead of Sebastian Vettel who this weekend has claimed that Mercedes are “catchable” and that they will not carry on their form throughout the season and win every single race of the season. The four time world champion closely followed by Bottas in the Williams who was as high as third place after the first corner.

Alonso finished ahead of Kimi Raikkonen again as the two drivers battled it out until the final laps. The two drivers had different pit stop strategies as Alonso went for a three stop race as he was more aggressive on his tyres throughout the race, and this paid off towards the end of the race as his passed out his team mate in the dying embers of the races due to having the fresher set of tyres. They were followed by Romain Grosjean who secured Lotus’ first points of what has been a disappointing season thus far. The making up for what was a bad weekend for the team as they saw Pastor Maldonado crash out in qualifying and cause a collision which landed the Venuzealen driver a five second stop go penalty during the race.

The final two points scoring positions were taken up by the two Force India drivers who denied McLaren scoring points again, as their frustrations continue. It now seems a lifetime ago that Danish rookie Kevin Magnussen finished on the Podium in what looked like an extremely promising start to his F1 career.

Championship Standings

Constructors Championship