2013 Spanish Grand Prix - Report

Fernando Alonso took a comfortable second win of the season in front of his devoted home fans at the Spanish Grand Prix. Making his way from fifth on the grid to third at the start of the race, Alonso took advantage of his Ferrari's scintillating race pace to take the lead shortly after his first pit-stop, and was never seriously challenged thereafter.

Kimi Raikkonen put up a valiant fight to finish second, but the Lotus car's superior tyre preservation wasn't enough to overhaul Alonso on this occasion. Felipe Massa put in a strong drive to make it two Ferraris on the podium in third ahead of points leader Sebastian Vettel, while pole-sitter Nico Rosberg came home sixth as the Mercedes drivers once again struggled with tyre wear throughout.

Mercedes were undoubtedly the team to beat on Saturday, with Rosberg posting two times quick enough for pole and Lewis Hamilton slotting in just behind his teammate to give the Silver Arrows their first front-row lockout of the year. Vettel would line up in third place from Raikkonen, Alonso and Romain Grosjean; Massa set the sixth fastest time but was demoted three places for impeding Mark Webber, who started seventh.

As the lights went out on Sunday, Rosberg maintained his advantage whilst Hamilton lost out to Vettel as the pack reached the first turn. The Brit then dropped behind Alonso, who audaciously passed the Mercedes driver around the outside of turn 3, having already taken Raikkonen on the exit of the previous corner, to the delight of the crowd.

That meant, at the end of the first lap, Rosberg led compatriot Vettel, Alonso, Hamilton, Raikkonen and a fast-starting Sergio Perez, who fell prey to Massa at the start of the second lap. Adrian Sutil had also made a superb getaway to sit eighth after starting 13th, with Grosjean and the second Force India of Paul Di Resta and Webber in his wake.

After a few laps, the top half-dozen cars began to split into two groups of three as Hamilton began to struggle with tyre wear. Raikkonen made his way ahead of the Mercedes at turn 10 on the seventh lap, with Massa doing likewise the following lap. By this stage, Webber had already made his first pit-stop, and by the end of lap 9, Massa, Alonso and Hamilton had also switched from medium compound to hard tyres.

The remaining front-runners all pitted at the end of lap 10, and the earlier stop allowed Alonso to jump Vettel for a net second place. Likewise, Massa had moved up ahead of Raikkonen into a net fourth place, whilst Webber climbed five places to a net sixth by being the first of all to pit. A slow first stop meanwhile had seen Hamilton drop to ninth.

Though not suffering as badly as his teammate, it was clear Rosberg lacked the race pace to get away from Alonso, and it seemed a mere matter of time before the home favourite surged ahead. With the help of the DRS along the main straight, Alonso got the job done at the start of lap 13, and took the lead of the race when Sauber's Esteban Gutierrez finally made his first pit-stop at the end of the lap.

By this stage, Rosberg had already fallen behind Vettel (at the turn 7-8 chicane) and Massa (in the second DRS zone before turn 10) and would drop a further position to Raikkonen at the start of lap 15. In the meantime, Alonso was stretching his legs at the head of the field, and had established a lead of over four seconds over Vettel by lap 19.

As the second round of pit-stops loomed, it was Massa who headed for the pit-lane first at the end of lap 20, swiftly followed by Webber. The following lap saw race leader Alonso dive for the pits, handing the lead to Vettel, who stayed until the end of lap 24. Kimi Raikkonen, the only driver among the leaders to opt for medium tyres for his second stint, then led proceedings until he made his second stop two laps later, again for a set of options.

This gave the impression that the Finn would try to make it home with just three stops instead of the conventional four as he was now around 16 seconds down on Alonso, who re-took the lead following Raikkonen's stop. The two-time champion enjoyed a seven second buffer over teammate Massa, who had successfully undercut Vettel to take second place and make it, for the time being at least, a Maranello one-two.

Alonso continued to grow his lead, which stood at 11 seconds by lap 32. Raikkonen meanwhile had caught Vettel and was now being held up the German, costing him valuable time in relation to the Ferraris. Having been repelled at turn 10 the previous lap, the Lotus driver finally found a way past at the start of lap 33, but any chance of victory appeared slim given that he was now 19 seconds away from the race lead.

The Ferrari drivers pitted on lap 36, both Alonso and Massa switching to the medium tyre for their fourth stint. Vettel came in for what would be his penultimate stop three laps later, also opting for the medium.
Raikkonen was now back in the lead, but all too briefly as Alonso breezed past with the help of DRS and fresher rubber at the start of lap 39.

With both drivers having one more stop to make, the identity of the race winner was in no doubt whatsoever by this stage; arguably it hadn't been since Alonso began to sprint into the distance during the second stint.
To further emphasise Alonso's speed, he had established a cushion of ten seconds by the time Raikkonen stopped for the final time, making the mandatory switch to the hard compound, on lap 45.

The 'Iceman' retained third ahead of Vettel despite the reigning champion's pace on new tyres, and when Alonso and Massa made their fourth stops on laps 49 and 51 respectively, Raikkonen moved up to second.
There was, however, no way at this late stage that he was going to be able to challenge Alonso, who enjoyed an untroubled run to the chequered flag.

With his second win at the Catalunya circuit, Alonso surpasses Nigel Mansell's win total with a 32nd career victory - only Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost and Michael Schumacher have more.

Raikkonen cruised home to an unchallenged second place, reducing Vettel's points lead from ten to four, while Massa took his first trip to the podium of 2013 with a strong drive to third. Vettel came home in fourth, and Webber rounded out the top five with Red Bull lacking sufficient race pace to take the fight to Ferrari or Lotus.

Having dropped behind Webber at the second pit-stop phase, Rosberg held on to finish sixth, narrowly ahead of Di Resta, who put in another quietly assured performance for Force India with seventh. More bad luck however befell teammate Sutil despite his great start - any chance of points for the German were extinguished by an excruciatingly long first pit-stop as the wheelnut issues which plagued the team in Malaysia returned.

Eighth place went to Jenson Button, who raced well on a three-stop strategy after starting a lowly 14th, but was disappointed by McLaren's updates failing to work as hoped. Finishing just behind in ninth was teammate Perez, who was somewhat more circumspect during battle than he was in Bahrain and ultimately was unable to find a way past his teammate, whom he nevertheless out-qualified for the first time on Saturday.

The final point of the afternoon went the way of Daniel Ricciardo, with the Toro Rosso showing some very solid pace all weekend. Teammate Jean-Eric Vergne was unlucky to be ruled out of contention with damage caused by a puncture, which may in turn have been due to a collision with Nico Hulkenberg in the pits. The Sauber driver continued, but a penalty for causing the shunt saw the 'Hulk' finish down in fifteenth.

It was a good race for the other side of the Sauber garage though, with Gutierrez setting the fastest lap of the race whilst chasing Ricciardo all the way home for tenth. After a shaky start to the year, the Mexican's performance was highly impressive considering a three place penalty for impeding Raikkonen in qualifying left him 19th on the grid.

Twelfth place went to Lewis Hamilton, who spent the entire race going backwards from his grid position of second. His slow first stop dropped him to ninth place, but Mercedes' perennial tyre wear troubles meant Hamilton was unable to re-gain any of the lost ground. Indeed, he was never really in the frame for points, losing further positions and only just holding on from a recovering Sutil at the end of the race.

At the scene of his maiden F1 victory a year ago, Pastor Maldonado could do no better than fourteenth after an early drive-through penalty for pit-lane speeding. Valtteri Bottas brought the sister Williams home in sixteenth behind Hulkenberg, demonstrating lucidly that Williams are still the least competitive midfield team by some distance despite updates having been introduced to turn their situation around.

Caterham on the other hand appear to have pulled ahead of their arch-rivals Marussia with their latest upgrades, Charles Pic winning the 'Class B' battle in 17th place and Giedo van der Garde looking in good shape until a detached left-rear wheel ended his challenge. Completing the finishers were the Marussia duo Jules Bianchi and Max Chilton, with Romain Grosjean the only other driver to retire with his Lotus suffering from rear suspension failure early on whilst running in ninth.