Spanish Grand Prix 2011 – Race Report

Sebastian Vettel eclipsed Lewis Hamilton by a mere sixth tenths of a second in an exciting duel to win the Spanish Grand Prix. The pair were in a class of their own, but ultimately the reigning champion was able to just hang on to secure his fourth win in five races. Jenson Button profited from making one less pit stop than his rivals to complete the podium.

In qualifying, Mark Webber was able to bring his Red Bull teammate Vettel's hitherto perfect record to an end to claim his first pole position of the season – with the German's KERS not functioning for the final session of the afternoon, Webber managed to set a time two tenths quicker. Both Red Bulls had around a second in hand from the McLarens of Hamilton and Button, although home favourite Fernando Alonso put in a blinder to split the British cars and line up in fourth.

At the start, both Red Bulls appeared to get away well, as did Hamilton, but none of them were counting on an even better start for Alonso. The Spaniard hugged the inside of the track, and to the crowd's delight, found himself leading the pack as the cars filed round the opening bends. Webber was squeezed out by the scarlet car and was forced to drop to third behind Vettel, whilst Hamilton was in fourth, from the Renault of Vitaly Petrov and a fast starting Michael Schumacher for Mercedes from tenth on the grid. In the meantime, Button made a poor start and plummeted from fifth to tenth, though that soon became ninth when he re-passed Sebastien Buemi on lap 5.

The top four men ran in formation until the first round of pit-stops, with the DRS appearing to have insufficient impact on the speeds down the start/finish straight for any of them to attempt a pass into the first turn. Vettel was the first to head into the pits to change tyres on lap 10, but hit traffic as he resumed in ninth. However, the championship leader made short work of the cars ahead, passing Button, the second Ferrari of Felipe Massa and Nico Rosberg's Mercedes in the space of less than a lap. Predictably though, the time lost was enough to allow Alonso to hang on to the lead as he pitted one lap later.

Things weren't going much better for Webber either, who got stuck behind the same cars as his teammate, dropping a position to Hamilton who stayed out one lap longer. Petrov also gave away positions to Schumacher and Button during the stops, though the Brit made a move on the seven-time champion shortly after their first stops to snatch fifth. Rosberg then passed Petrov to wrest eighth position away from the Russian, seeming to show further evidence of Renault having perhaps been surpassed by Mercedes in the pecking order.

Vettel was once again the first man to come into the pits for the second phase of stops on lap 18, and this time emerged from the pit-lane in clear air, which allowed him to press home the speed advantage of the Red Bull. Alonso pitted one lap later, but the pit-work of the Ferrari crew wasn't enough to keep their number one driver in the lead. Indeed, Hamilton's pace was such that once he temporarily took first, he slotted back in between Vettel and Alonso after his stop, made on lap 24. Thus, the new order became Vettel from Hamilton, Alonso, Webber and Button.

It was at this stage of the race that it became a two-horse race between the champions of 2010 and 2008. For all the screams of the adoring fans, Alonso simply didn't have the speed to keep up with either Vettel or Hamilton, and gradually fell back into the clutches of Webber. The Australian quickly zeroed in on his former Formula 3000 rival, but like at the beginning of the race, the DRS wasn't enough for Webber to make a pass. He wasn't helped by a reported KERS problem either, which so far this season would seem to be the dominant Red Bull team's Achilles' heel.

Alonso and Webber made their third stops simultaneously on lap 30, both men interestingly making an early switch to the hard tyres. In similar fashion to Turkey, the Ferrari mechanics released their driver into the path of another, but since there was no contact, once more no punishment was applied. As such, Webber remained frustrated behind the slower Alonso, though he did attempt a move into turn 10 on lap 34 which failed to stick. This allowed Button, yet to make his third stop, to close in on both of them, and the Brit, on relatively fresh soft tyres, easily deprived Webber and Alonso on turns 1 and 11 respectively on lap 36.

Four laps later, Alonso made a surprisingly early fourth and final stop of the race, leaving himself a full 26 laps to complete the race on a set of hard tyres. Webber didn't come into the pits until lap 48, by which time he had built a comfortable cushion to retain fourth when he resumed from his stop. At the front, the gap between Vettel and Hamilton after their third stops was down to less than two seconds after a temporary loss of KERS on the Red Bull, and the duo made their final stops in that order on laps 49 and 50. Vettel continued to lead by less than a second from Hamilton, but the McLaren ace couldn't get quite close enough to attempt a pass.

In spite of the very best efforts from Hamilton, Vettel hung on to take his fourteenth career victory by just sixth tenths ahead of his closest championship rival, drawing level with such illustrious names as Jack Brabham, Graham Hill and Emerson Fittipaldi in the all-time rankings. Button was able to keep a faster Webber at bay to take the final podium position, leaving Alonso a lapped fifth place after such an electrifying start. Schumacher posted his best result of the season so far with sixth, incidentally beating his teammate Rosberg for the first time this year as well.

Nick Heidfeld finished close behind the pair of silver cars after a storming drive from the back of the grid. After a cracked exhaust in Saturday practice led to his Renault spectacularly igniting, the experienced German was forced to begin the race from the very rear of the grid. With plentiful soft tyres in reserve though, he gradually carved his way through the order to finish the race in a creditable eighth. The two Sauber boys of Sergio Perez and Kamui Kobayashi put in strong performances to claim the final points, the latter particularly so after he sustained a puncture on the first lap.

Petrov sunk down the order in the latter stages to a lowly eleventh place, ahead of the two Force Indias of Paul Di Resta and Adrian Sutil. Sebastien Buemi was fourteenth for Toro Rosso, from Pastor Maldonado who dropped from a promising grid position of ninth. Their respective teammates Jaime Alguersauri and Rubens Barrichello were next, with the finishers being rounded out by Jarno Trulli for Team Lotus, the Virgins of Timo Glock and Jerome D'Ambrosio, and finally Hispania's Narain Karthikeyan. Massa, along with Vitantonio Liuzzi, retired due to gearbox woes, whilst Heikki Kovalainen failed to make good use of his 15th place on the grid, burying his Lotus in the tyre barrier at turn 4.

While Vettel may have extended his championship lead to 41 points from Hamilton and 51 from Webber, at least on this occasion it would appear the young wunderkind most certainly had his hands full. There's only one week to wait until next time out at Monaco, which with its own unique demands, could well give us a rather different outcome from today's race. Vettel's rivals will be definitely hoping that's the case, or else the 2011 championship title will be beginning to look worryingly one-sided.