Before the race I had my suspicions about Mercedes´s race pace. I was convinced that the battle for the victory was going to be between three drivers, none of them driving for Mercedes: Kimi, Vettel and Alonso. My expectations didn´t turn out to be completely wrong...
Before the lights went out I was extremely worried about Alonso, who was starting from P5 right alongside Kimi. And my concern turned out to be very much to the purpose as Alonso has taken some superb starts during this season. And the Spaniard didn´t fail this time, either! In spite of the fact that Kimi managed to take a very decent start, by turn 4 Alonso had overtaken both Kimi and Hamilton and made his way up to the third place! Rosberg was leading and Sebastian at the wheel of his RB9 had gone up to second.
On the opening laps Mercedes´s race pace seemed pretty decent. But it turned out to be an illusion after all. Kimi made a staggering pass on Hamilton on lap 8 and by lap 15 he had gone past Rosberg also. And after that Mercedes´s race was a catastrophy: losing positions one by one! Kimi´s team-mate Grosjean also faced a major setback at the beginning of the race. On lap 10 the French Lotus driver had to retire after there was something seriously wrong with his rear right suspension.
After the first pit stops Alonso managed to make it ahead of Vettel. And that was the beginning of Alonso´s triumph in front of his Spanish fans... Sebastian couldn´t match Alonso´s speed today. In the half point of the race Kimi closed his gap to Sebastian and made an easy-looking overtaking move on the German on lap 34. So the Iceman was in P3 at this stage of the race.
Although Alonso had a 4-stop strategy there was nothing and no one that could prevent the Spanish Ferrari driver from winning today. I couldn´t have believed in my wildest dreams that Alonso could have won starting from P5! So history was made by the skillful Ferrari driver -there´s no denying that. Alonso´s team-mate Massa had a perfect strategy as well: starting from P9 he made his way up to the podium by finishing 3rd! Who could have predicted that!? This shows the fact that Ferrari is probably the best team in Formula 1 in terms of race strategy and tactics. Kimi proved that success was possible with a different strategy: the Iceman stopped only three times and he finished second today. Sebastian drove to the chequered flag in P4 followed by his team-mate Webber, who had had another lousy start to the race (losing 4 positions at the start) but thanks to a clever strategy choice was able to finish the race in P5. Rosberg finally finished the race 6th but Hamilton didn´t manage to fight his way even to the points after starting from the first row!
The situation in the championship standings couldn´t be any more exciting! Kimi managed to decrease the gap between him and Sebastian and now the gap is only 4 points! After winning today Alonso made a huge leap closer to these two in the standings and now the Spaniard is only 17 points off Sebastian in the lead. Which means that one win or one failure can make everything go around! Red Bull is still leading the constructors´ championship with 131 points but Ferrari and Lotus are not far behind (Ferrari have 117 points and Lotus 111 points).
Monaco GP in a fortnight will be a whole new adventure. It´s such a different circuit compared to all the other circuits and with a very few chances to overtake Mercedes won´t suffer from the lack of race pace as much as they have everywhere else. There has been a lot of talk about the tyres because the current tyre compounds make it impossible for the teams to drive as fast as the potential of the car would allow. This is a contradictory dilemma which especially Red Bull have been complaining about a lot recently. Sebastian said after today´s race that he wasn´t going the pace of the car but the pace of the tyres. And I agree that it´s not racing in a matter of fact! It´s acceptable that the tyres are a key factor and you have to try to make them last as well as possible but the race shouldn´t be ALL about the tyres! Formula 1 racing makes you think that you should be faster than your rivals and go as flat out as you can. So in my opinion it´s very legitimate to claim changes to the tyre compounds. Even Pirelli´s Hembery stated after the race that some changes need to be made as Alonso´s race was nearly ruined by a puncture just before his first pit stop. And even though Alonso was running on a 4-stop strategy! And during this GP weekend we´ve also seen twice how the surface of a tyre has come off, which is another alarming factor and could lead to a serious accident. So the question of the tyres will be in the air...
On the podium we saw classic Kimi: disappointed to be second instead of winning. But Kimi´s 2nd place made my Mother´s day just perfect :) Although Sebastian didn´t climb on the podium today. But in the world of Formula 1 success cannot be taken for granted and you can´t expect your favourite driver always to stand on the top step of podium. The statistics, however, tell all about the unique character of Kimi Räikkönen: today marked his 33rd consecutive race finish which equalled Nick Heidfeld´s record. Kimi has also had 22 consecutive points finishes so he´s close to Schumacher´s record of 24 consecutive points finishes. And I´m sure there´s much more to come from the ice cool Finnish Lotus driver!
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