Kimi Räikkönen & Sebastian Vettel

Kimi Räikkönen & Sebastian Vettel

sunnuntai 10. toukokuuta 2015

Spanish GP: Rosberg took win as my hunch said!

For me Spanish GP differs from all the other grands prix because Circuit de Catalunya brings back so many memories. It was only three months ago when I spent three awesome days beside the track watching the last pre-season test session live! It´s different to watch the action on that particular track on TV as I look at the corners and think "Yes, that´s the place where I went to on my first day and took those great photos" and so on. At the end of the day it´s so different to actually see all those cars drive live in front of your very eyes! Something that you´ll never forget.

The start was absolutely breathtaking. Rosberg stormed from pole to lead but Sebastian managed to make his way past Hamilton, whose start was anything but perfect. Kimi in P7 took an aggressive start as well and the Iceman passed both Toro Rosso drivers jumping 5th right behind Bottas in the FW37. My prediction about Toro Rosso´s race pace soon turned out to be true: there was no chance either Sainz or Verstappen could match Kimi´s pace. Also Massa in the Williams had an easy task to overtake the Toro Rossos one by one.

Rosberg in the lead had a safe 3-second gap to Sebastian but Hamilton on the other hand was right at Sebastian´s tail. But thanks to Ferrari´s excellent straight-line speed the Briton had no real chance to overtake the German even if he was within DRS distance. Hamilton was the first top driver to pit on lap 14. Everything didn´t, however, go to plan during the pit stop: there were difficulties to get the Briton´s rear left tyre attached, which cost several extra seconds. When Sebastian pitted a lap later he managed to rejoin the track ahead of Hamilton.

After the first pit stops the order remained unchanged: Rosberg was leading the race with Sebastian 2nd, Hamilton 3rd, Bottas 4th and Kimi 5th. Kimi´s tyre choice differed from that of his rivals: Kimi opted for a fresh set of hard tyres for his second stint whilst all the other top drivers had opted for another set of option tyres.

In the midfield Pastor Maldonado´s promising race was ruined due to a rear wing failure. During the Venezuelan´s pit stop the mechanics detached a big part of his rear wing but against all odds the rear wing didn´t fly off at any part of the race. McLaren´s Alonso on the other hand suffered from brake problems and the Spaniard was about to hit one of the mechanics in the pits as he was unable to stop his car in time. Luckily no one got hurt!

Hamilton made his second pit stop a lot earlier than his rivals, which meant the Briton had a different strategy: he was on a 3-stop strategy. In spite of the varying strategies and tyre choices the Spanish GP evolved as quite a boring race. Sebastian lost his 2nd place to Hamilton during his second and last pit stop and after that the pecking order was quite clear: Rosberg had over a 10-second lead over his team-mate and Sebastian in P3 had a clear gap over Bottas in P4. Luckily Kimi offered the spectators some entertainment after his second pit stop. The Iceman had rejoined the track about 10 seconds behind Massa in his Williams but on the new set of medium tyres Kimi was absolutely flying and closing the gap to Massa massively fast. And when Kimi had caught Massa up he didn´t hesitate to overtake the Brasilian! After getting past Massa Kimi started to chase Bottas, who was some 8 seconds ahead of his countryman.

With less than 10 laps to go Kimi was right at Bottas´s tail! But Williams didn´t turn out to be an easy car to overtake. In the previous race Valtteri had done excellent job by holding back Sebastian Vettel in his Ferrari and this time there was the other Ferrari lurking from Valtteri´s mirrors. And even if Kimi got within DRS distance he had no chance to overtake his compatriot. Williams could easily match Ferrari´s straigh-line speed.

So once again it was a very predicted 1-2 for Mercedes. The only refreshing thing about this was the fact that Nico Rosberg took his first win of the season (like my hunch said) and decreased the gap to Hamilton into 20 points in the championship standings. Sebastian finished 3rd ahead of Bottas in P4 and Kimi in P5. Massa finished 6th, Ricciardo 7th, Grosjean 8th, Sainz 9th and Kvyat 10th. Verstappen was left out of points in P11. I was very happy about Sebastian´s third place but all in all this was such a boring race as the Mercedes duo were so much quicker than all the rest. Hopefully the Monaco GP will be a different story. There in the narrow streets of Monaco it´ll be all about a great qualifying result!




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