After a string of fairly eventful races thousands of miles from home, it's fair to say that the return to F1's European heartland was something of a disappointment. The Circuit de Catalunya has never exactly been renowned for thrillers, but its case certainly wasn't helped by the utterly dominant form of the Red Bull team.
The Anglo-Austrian cars secured the front row in qualifying, but not in the order most were expected. Webber just managed to find that extra tenth of a second to steal the coveted pole spot away from teammate Vettel, with the other teams left behind by 7 tenths of a second. Hamilton and Alonso shared the second row ahead of championship leader Button and a somewhat revitalised Michael Schumacher, seemingly content with the radical updates made by his Mercedes team.
Clear skies and a radiant sun prevailed as expected, which along with a fairly standard grid order just about guaranteed a lacklustre race. Webber made a clean getaway from the front and lead the pack into the first corner, with all top 7 in grid order by the end of lap 1. The big loser was Robserg, who wound up 11th after a brief excursion on the grass, which began a thoroughly miserable day for the German. Deep in the midfield, contact between Buemi and De La Rosa warranted both of them pitting early for repairs, with the latter eventually retiring.
The top 6 positions remained static until the stops, with Webber's lead remaining intact. Schumacher pitted first along with Massa and was able to just nip ahead of Button as he returned to the race track from a fumbled pitstop. Jenson was thus consigned behind the 7-time champion thereafter, with the Brit endeavouring to re-pass multiple times at turn 1. Schumacher soon became wholly familiar with Button's tactics and thus effortlessly thwarted the Brit's attempts every time for the next dozen or so laps. Vettel tried a similar move as Hamilton returned to the track, but the backmarking Virgin car of Di Grassi proved somewhat obstructive and the move failed to come off, with the McLaren pilot seizing second place from the Red Bull.
This made the order Webber, Hamilton, Vettel, Alonso, then a sizeable gap back to Schumacher, Button and Massa, all tightly grouped. Further down the order, there was a ballsy pass on Hulkenberg by the young charger Alguersauri for 11th place. The Spaniard at his home track well and truly put teammate Buemi in the shade, even if he did earn a drive-through for accounting for the front wing of the luckless Chandhok. Hulkenberg then fell into the clutches of Renault's Petrov and Sauber's Kobayashi, who despite looking quick were never quite able to convert that pace into an overtaking manoeuvre on the German before he pitted.
In the closing laps however, high drama struck the leaders. After third-placed Vettel indulged in a spot of rallycross, it became apparent there was trouble. After a pitstop for fresh tyres, it transpired the team were nervous for the Red Bull's brakes, with Vettel's engineer urging the German to ease right off with a mammoth gap in hand back to Schumacher. Although he relinquished 3rd place to home-crowd favourite Alonso, he did manage to nurse his car to the finish. That's more than can be said for Lewis Hamilton, who in a cruel twist of fate was denied second place after a tyre failure pitched his McLaren into the barriers on the penultimate lap. The crowds erupted as that then allowed their hero Alonso to inherit second, with the car of his former arch-rival buried in a tyre wall.
That late surge of excitement didn't bother Mark Webber however, who by that time had pulled in excess of 15 seconds clear. He duly took his first win of the season 2 laps later, catapulting himself right back into the title hunt. Alonso took a solid second position to move to within 2 points of Button's championship lead, with Vettel's third place narrowing the gap between himself and the reigning champion as well. Schumacher took a worthy 4th place from Button and Massa, with the points positions being completed by a fine drive from Sutil to 7th, an uneventful run for Kubica to 8th, a spirited charge to 9th from 18th on the grid from Barrichello, and a aggressive but impressive race from Alguersauri to take 10th.
It certainly won't go down as a classic race by any means, but it will go down as arguably the finest ever drive from Mark Webber, expunging any doubt that he was able to win a straight, dry-weather fight against his teammate Vettel. We only have to wait for a week until F1 hits the tiny, glamorous principality of Monaco, where we shall see whether the Australian is capable of keeping up that kind of form.
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