Nico Rosberg wins from Lewis Hamilton in the Spanish GP
Nico Rosberg drove to an excellent victory at the Circuit of Barcelona-Catalunya this Sunday, with team-mate Lewis Hamilton flying to second place. Sebastian Vettel grabs his 4th podium with Ferrari in third.
Germans Nico Rosberg and Sebastian Vettel had a great race start. Lewis Hamilton quickly fell behind the Ferrari and really struggled to try and challenge Vettel, even radioing it was ‘impossible’ to get close to him.
Then the Mercedes magic came to be - a clever switch in strategy to ‘Plan B’ ensured Hamilton’s famous Hammertime and he did a staggering middle stint on hard tyres, going much more faster than the rest and making his way onto a comfortable second.
Ahead of Hamilton Nico Rosberg handled the race his way and behind the Briton Sebastian Vettel secured third place in a decent race that saw his get into quite a bit of traffic.
The battle for fourth place was shaped nicely towards the end: Valtteri Bottas v Kimi Raikkonen in the battle of Finns, both with used tyres after long stints, ultimately the Williams driver held the spot.
Some track scares did happen midway, as first Fernando Alonso had a brake issue and nearly ran over the McLaren Jack man - luckily with no injuries. Alonso’s car was retired. Similar to Alonso, Romain Grosjean had a similar scenario and his Jack man went flying in the pitstop, but was okay afterwards.
Pastor Maldonado in the other Lotus did make some great initial racing, with good pace, but then suffered damage and raced with just half his rear wing for a long time. He would retire towards the end.
Carlos Sainz and Daniil Kvyat almost lost the last couple of points as they touched into Turn 1 on the last lap, but both carried on to finish 9th and 10th respectively.
TOP TEN FINISHERS
1. Nico Rosberg— Winner
2. Lewis Hamilton — +17.551
3. Sebastian Vettel — +45.342
4. Valtteri Bottas — +59.217
5. Kimi Raikkonen — +60.002
6. Felipe Massa — +81.314
7. Daniel Ricciardo — +1 lap
8. Romain Grosjean — +1 lap
9. Carlos Sainz — +1 lap
10. Daniil Kvyat — +1 lap
