Round 5 - Spain 2015 - Race

Greetings Internet

And that ladies and gentlemen is why no-one really looks forward to the Spanish GP - it has to be on the calendar and deserves to be there but it isn't the most enthralling instalment of the season. Some people will be flying home from Barcelona a little happier than others and if this race, being the key opening phase of the all important development marathon, is going to define the pecking order for the rest of the year - it looks rather ominous. To think that people were hailing the Malaysian GP as some undeniable indication of a resurgent and powerful Ferrari force... Even when the track temperatures rose on race day, it proves what the more reasonable among us theorised - Malaysia was a fluke, a unique combination of conditions, safety car interventions and strategic decisions that allowed Vettel to spoil Mercedes 100% record in 2015. Of course next race will be different - because Monaco is always different - but the season as a whole took a significant blow, 45s is a huge gap to conclude the race. Yes, that gap was influenced by strategy, lapped cars and battles elsewhere - but even so this is turning into the same two horse race as it was in 2014. However, one speck of hope is that those two horses have picked up the fight between them, so when everything else appears to be getting worse there is something to look forward to.

The Race

Sunday afternoon started with an air of anticipation, as for the first time this season the balance of power within the top two teams had been inverted. Nico was on pole - and Vettel just behind the pair as an omnipresent threat. But as the race got underway Nico drove off into the lead and Lewis got a little bit of wheelspin allowing Vettel to take second. Bottas almost claimed third but Lewis closed the door in turn one. The other point of interest was also over and done with before the end of the second sector - and it was almost done by turn two. Raikkonen and Massa's recovery from a less then optimal qualifying result. On the run down to the first corner they went either side of the pair of Toro Rossos, but Mad Max Verstappen escorted Massa wide in turn two which compromised Raikkonen's run through turn three. But Kimi went down the inside of Verstappen in turn five and then round the outside of Sainz Jnr in turn seven. Aside from the battles involving the Toro Rosso cars, the Lotus team moved forward at the expense of Daniil Kyvat and Ricciardo.

When things settled down - around turn 10 - Rosberg had opened out a safe gap ahead of Vettel, and Hamilton who was trapped in the wake of turbulent air from the back of the Ferrari. Toro Rosso would have preferred that level of stability in their race, given their strong starting position - the successful qualifying setup was proving to be a terrible race configuration. A combination of a higher downforce setting and a the Renault engine made them very vulnerable in a straight line. On the main straight cars were just driving past as if they weren't there - and this was even before the DRS came into effect. Massa drove past Sainz with ease and Maldonado performed the same move on Verstappen. One lap later Grosjean attempted the same feat on Sainz - except the Frenchman was surprised to find turn one creep up on him quite so quickly. As a result he ran off track, scampered across the run-off area, before rejoining before turn three. Pastor Maldonado: Road Warrior swept in front of Romains car when it rejoined but didn't quite leave enough space and slight contact was made. At first it seemed as if there was no lasting damage - but a few laps later once the DRS became active, the process of opening and closing the rear wing flap caused one of the endplates to fail. 

After the incident Grosjean started to lose a few places, to Verstappen and Ricciardo despite a straight line speed advantage. It turned out that one of his gears was malfunctioning - which may have influenced his earlier adventure across the first chicane. His team radioed through to inform Romain that he would have to lift when using the dodgy gear otherwise the engine might explode... which would be rather problematic. With Grosjean out of the way, Ricciardo set his sights on the junior team car inhabited by Mad Max Verstappen - but after sailing past in a straight line the Australian ran wide and handed the place back in turn one. But it wasn't long before the Red Bull was in front.

It was time for the first round of stops and Hamilton came in first, due to being held up by Vettel - hoping that stopping earlier would allow him to undercut the Ferrari. Alas that plan failed, a slow tyre change cancelled out any advantage gained by an earlier stop - then of course he rejoined behind Pastor Maldonado: Road Warrior in his increasingly Mad Max Lotus with the flapping wing endplate. The advantage of a Mercedes on new tyres meant that it only took five corners to pass the Venezuelan. Dealing with behind Vettel would prove to be more challenging for Hamilton as we find ourselves dealing another episode of "Grumpy Lewis" which only seems to emerge once other cars happen to be in front of him... This him Lewis was informed that he would have to pass Vettel on track - to which he responded that it was pretty much impossible so the team had to find a new solution... I remember the days when passing someone was confined the minds of the strategists rather than the drivers, looks like we are heading that way once more. But that wasn't the end of this race's edition "Grumpy Lewis" as the world champion made the all too common complaint of instructing his race engineer not to talk to him during the corners... Strange we didn't hear quite the same complaints when he was winning the race.

In this middle phase of the race, it could be said that roughly nothing happened, if I hadn't already visited the kitchen for a pre-race toastie, then this would be the time to do so. Things had stagnated to such a degree that even Alonso's brakes fell asleep - failing to slow the car down in turn one and forcing an unscheduled pit stop. However the idea of a pit-stop is to actually stop the car, which does become rather difficult when the brakes have failed - so the Spaniard overshot his pit-stall by a considerable margin. If the front jack operator hadn't reacted in time, he'd have been dragged down the pit lane with the car. Ultimately the McLaren Empire had to be retired. Sometimes moving to the darkside doesn't always pay off. Elsewhere in pit-lane Lotus were manhandling Maldonado's rear wing ultimately tearing off the damaged endplate and releasing it back into the race. Under maximum load it would flex at rather jaunty angle. On track most cars had sizeable gaps between each other, in commentary it was reported that the closest pair of cars were 3.5s apart, and that was the battle at the end of the points between the two Toro Rosso cars. Because in the end the only thing that wasn't powering past them on the straight was from the same garage. 

So instead we waited for the second round of stops, and this time Hamilton wasn't impeded by a slow tyre change - and he rejoined behind Raikkonen who was running on an alternate strategy. Many expected Vettel to pit on the following lap - to cover off the undercut like under the first round of stops, but Ferrari kept the German on track. In the end it wouldn't have mattered because Hamilton's first lap was 2.5 seconds faster than Sebastian - meaning a covering stop wouldn't have worked. As it turned out the Mercedes team could find another solution to getting past the Ferrari without Hamilton having to make an overtake... this is quite a sad state of affairs but it is how things might be reasonably often in 2015. With this massive pace advantage it wasn't long before he was past Raikkonen on older tyres - so it turned out Lewis could pass a Ferrari. The next question is whether or not the Mercedes could pass a Williams, as Bottas was the next car on track - and with Hamilton's current pace it wasn't too long before we found the answer to that question. As soon as the Briton caught the Finn - he drove straight past on the main straight, Bottas didn't even really put up a strong defence and immediately conceded the position.

After Vettel and Rosberg pitted - Hamilton temporarily inherited the lead... and during this phase of the race we didn't hear Lewis complain once... interesting. Elsewhere in pit-lane, front jack men were becoming an endangered species. Not long after Sith Lord Alonso nearly eliminated his, Romain Grosjean wiped his out. Locking up and sliding into the pit-stall the Frenchman launched his jack operator - to the man's credit he held onto the jack and still lifted the car while sailing through the air. He was uninjured by the slight flight before landing with the shaft of the jack in a rather unfortunate position. Later shots of the pit garage pictured the mechanic sitting with an icepack over his gentlemans vegetables. The rest wasn't too long as Maldonado: Road Warrior was pitting soon, only to retire his damaged car from the race to avoid the risk of total rear wing failure. As Hamilton's stint came to an end he pitted for the final time, without damaging any pit crew members in the process, handing the lead back to Rosberg as Lewis rejoined in second just in front of Vettel - and on newer tyres ending any hopes of that battle peaking in the remaining laps. 

In the final phase of the race two battles were starting to emerge - the first being the battle of the Finns - Raikkonen vs Bottas for fourth place. While the other was at the opposite end of the points as Grosjean was recovering from the early gearbox issue. Rosberg had life easy at the front of the race, saving tyres and fuel just in case Hamilton made a late race charge. There was a theory that Vettel on older tyres would drop into the hands of the Bottas/Raikkonen battle - but that was more of a case of wishful thinking than anything else. We sat and watched as Kimi's tyres were degrading in the turbulent air of Valtteri's car, the Ferrari closed up to the Williams with ease but once he got inside the one second barrier the advances stopped. Lap on lap the Ferrari was sliding more, losing ground through the critical corners - preventing any chance of a positional change. So instead we had to look at the remaining battle at the end of the points - but surprise surprise there was something wrong with that one too. This time it was the problem of being lapped - there always seemed to be a Ferrari, Mercedes or Williams in the middle of their scrap. 

The more astute among you may have noticed that Hamilton was still not winning and therefore it was time for another instalment of "Argumentative Hamilton" which is similar to "Grumpy Hamilton" - this time the team called to tell him to give up the fight for the win as the gap was too large to close in the remaining laps. The team wanted Lewis to save the engine rather than try and hunt Nico down - Lewis complained and questioned the team whether it was impossible to win or not. It was less of a radio call and more of an interrogation. In the end it Lewis conceded defeat, in a way it makes sense to call the fight off, but it is a disheartening statement on how the sport is at the moment. Because the new objective is to get to the end of the race with as little racing as possible in between - because racing hurts tyres and therefore laptime while at the same time risking damaging the engine and so on. 

So Rosberg brought home a simple victory ahead of Hamilton - over 40 seconds behind the leader was the closest Ferrari... those hopes of a dual manufacturer battle seem to have petered out rather. Behind Vettel, Bottas and Raikkonen held station as the Ferrari driver's tyres dropped away. Massa came home in 6th place and the last car on the same lap as the leaders, Ricciardo and Grosjean rounded out the top eight positions. Because the leaders were so far ahead the rest of the field hadn't finished and decided to pack in as much racing as possible in the remaining corners. Having taken the last points place from Verstappen Sainz tried to wrestle 9th from Kvyat - as Carlos looked to the outside of the Russian, Daniil locked up and slid into the side of the Toro Rosso barging it off the track. The Spaniard took to the run-off and rejoined ahead of the Red Bull, holding the positions for the remainder of the final lap. 

Bonus Points Championship Points Winners

Well, that won't be the most memorable race in the history of motorsport - and to think that I didn't record any of the BTCC this weekend simply to save space on the disk drive... which now feels like a terrible mistake. In race like that it does become difficult to find anything work handing bonus points to but here goes...

• 25pts - That Lotus Jack man - Scores full points for still doing his job despite being launched by Grosjean, that job takes balls...
• 18pts - Carlos Sainz - Despite a terrible setup on the Toro Rosso, he still managed to score points even after a robust move by Daniil on the last lap
• 15pts - Romain Grosjean - Wins pass of the race, round the outside of Daniil Kvyat in turn one with very little room to spare
• 12pts - Kimi Raikkonen - A strong opening lap including an impressive overtake on the outside of Sainz in turn seven
• 10pts - That McLaren Jack man - Marvellous agility to avoid the same fate that befell his Lotus counterpart
• 8pts - Valtteri Bottas - For the second race in a row Valtteri is able to hold off a Ferrari with almost no effort - just watched Kimi's tyres wear
• 6pts - Nico Rosberg - Gets some points for winning the race, even though he barely did anything
• 4pts - Sebastian Vettel - Great start, and for a while kept up the hope of a proper race between himself and Hamilton for a little while
• 2pts - Lewis Hamilton - Despite entering "Grumpy Hamilton" mode in the race he still wanted to fight to the end even when the team didn't
• 1pt - David Croft - Scores the final point for calling Valterri "Botarse"... unintentional but hilarious 

• -1pt - DRS - It was calibrated all wrong this weekend, and was very evident in the opening phase of the second GP2 race
• -1pt - Mercedes - Telling Lewis to stop racing and accept defeat, so much for allowing the drivers to race eh?
• -2pts - Sky F1 - Today's strategy explanation phase was very poor, addressing the audience as if we were all morons, and to make matters worse it was all done by placing pens on a box. For a broadcaster who paid millions to take this away from the BBC is was an embarrassment - at least by Ted a whiteboard to write things down on so he can move on from using Startbust sweets and stolen pens as props... Look even a national touring car championship in Australia can do this a million times better. Major disappointment this time round folk

Looking Ahead to Monaco

Well, Monaco has to be better than Spain, one can hope. While the Spanish GP isn't one of those races everyone looks forward to - the Monaco GP certainly is, even if it does bear the risk of being another procession, overtaking on the narrow streets is even more difficult than it was today. But the risk of safety cars, carnage and mayhem is also much higher - which can throw all of those pre-defined strategies and plans out of the window. It is one of those big iconic races in the world of motorsport, alongside the Indy 500 and the Le Mans 24hrs, just with a lot more money involved. As a result the Monaco GP has one unfortunate symptom, and that is a chronic infection of 'celebrities' all crowding around the circuit for the briefest portion of TV coverage, we didn't see that many famous faces crowding on the grid. That plague of invaders aside, the Monaco GP is always a voyage into uncertainty where it is race that could either be painfully dull or manically destructive with various levels of action in between.