Nico Rosberg finally stemmed the tide and took a convincing pole position and victory at the Spanish Grand Prix.
Before the race his Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton was voted ‘most likely to cause headaches at Turn 1′, but when he spun his wheels on launch and was then mugged from behind by the second-row starters the result for Rosberg was all but assured.
Despite his triumph Rosberg still trails Hamilton by 20 points. After missing pole by only 0.04 seconds in China, Nico has been waiting for a change of fortune and most thought that getting the job done in qualifying would set him up for a maiden victory this season.
Hamilton finished a distant second, but things could have been far more difficult for the reigning champion had Scuderia played their best strategic hand.
In recent times Ferrari have managed to turn alternative race strategies to their advantage, snatching an unlikely victory in Malaysia and putting Kimi Raikkonen in the mix in Bahrain, however the decision not to match Mercedes’ pit-stop strategy this weekend is perplexing.
After fending off Hamilton in the first stint, then managing to come out ahead after the first round of stops, things were looking positive for Sebastian Vettel. By Hamilton’s own admission during the race overtaking in Catalunya was virtually impossible, even with the assistance of DRS.
“Fortunately towards the end it was enough to get it done on a three-stopper,” Hamilton told the press post-race. “I was able to get by, but if I had been behind him in traffic I wouldn’t have got past.”
Even if Hamilton could have passed Vettel on track, last race in Bahrain demonstrated that technical gremlins can occasionally ruin the party for Mercedes, so you’d have to think that if Hamilton went wide somewhere Vettel would be better served sitting right behind him ready to pounce rather than two positions back on sub-optimal tyres.
Raikkonen in the sister Ferrari illustrated that alternative strategies require the skill and speed to pull off overtakes to extract their full value, an easy task in the early stages against underpowered opponents, a very difficult one in the dying laps. Apart from providing the opportunity to sharpen up our Finnish puns, the battle for fourth between Valtteri Bottas and Raikkonen offered little about which to be enthused.
For whatever reason, and despite the eternal optimism of the Sky F1 commentary team, Rosberg appeared revitalised throughout the entire weekend. Unlike recent weeks where he conserved tyres for the race, he pushed his car to the limit in every qualifying session so those looking to dismiss the result as a fluke do so at their own peril.
Ultimately Hamilton’s poor start disguises the legitimacy of his achievement. With a generous lead in the championship it won’t give the reigning champion too many sleepless nights, but both he and Ferrari would be wise to examine their procedures ahead of Monaco, another notoriously processional track.
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