Spanish GP 2014: Hamilton holds off Rosberg by 0.6 seconds

At the 2014 Spanish GP at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Lewis Hamilton won from pole position. The finish could hardly have been closer: team-mate Nico Rosberg crossed the line just 0.636 seconds behind. Daniel Ricciardo finished third for Red Bull. The tyre battle between the two Mercedes drivers in the closing laps decided the race. Rosberg closed in on fresher, faster tyres but ran out of laps to launch an attack. With the win, Hamilton took the championship lead for the first time this season.

Hamilton made a clean getaway and led into Turn 1. Rosberg followed him, and behind them Valtteri Bottas in the Williams got a better start than Ricciardo and passed him for third. According to Wikipedia, Hamilton was 1.1 seconds ahead of Rosberg after the opening lap. Over the following laps he stretched his lead a little further.

Ricciardo was stuck behind Bottas at first. According to the FIA, his team told him to stay around two seconds back to look after his tyres. Bottas defended cleverly against the Red Bull driver's attacks. Further back, Pastor Maldonado (Lotus F1) and Marcus Ericsson (Caterham) collided on the third lap. Maldonado was given a five-second stop-and-go penalty for it (source: Wikipedia). He had already started the race from the back of the grid.

The two Silver Arrows went into the race with different tyre plans. Both made two stops, and both started on the medium tyres. Hamilton made his first pit stop on lap 18 and took a second set of mediums. Rosberg stayed out until lap 21, leading the race briefly in the meantime, and then switched to the harder compound. According to the FIA, this set him up for a late attack: in the final stint he had the faster medium tyres, while Hamilton had to finish on the slower hard tyres. According to grandprix.com, Rosberg had initially misunderstood the plan for his second stint.

Hamilton was back in the lead from lap 22. On lap 43 he switched to the hard compound. Rosberg stayed out until lap 45 and briefly led again before taking fresh mediums. From lap 46 Hamilton was back in front, and the chase was on. Rosberg closed in lap by lap, but overtaking is difficult at the Barcelona circuit. Hamilton held him off all the way to the chequered flag. Rosberg said afterwards that he would have attempted a move with one more lap: “I wasn't close enough to give it a go there but next lap I would have.” (source: Wikipedia). Formula1.com stressed that the result was open until the final corners of lap 66 and that Mercedes let its drivers race each other freely.

Red Bull brought Ricciardo in as early as lap 14 to undercut Bottas. The plan worked: Bottas did not stop until lap 20 and dropped behind the Australian. From then on, Ricciardo drove a lonely race in third place, finishing 49.0 seconds behind the winner according to the FIA. It was his first podium to stand in the results. At the season opener in Australia he had been disqualified from second place.

Sebastian Vettel produced an even more spectacular drive. The world champion had qualified tenth but received a five-place grid penalty for an unscheduled gearbox change. He therefore started the race from grid position 15. He initially lost time behind Jenson Button, so Red Bull brought him in as early as lap 12 for the first of three stops, giving him clear air. Further stops on laps 33 and 52 gave him the fresher tyres in the closing phase. That allowed him to get ahead of Kimi Räikkönen, among others, and according to grandprix.com he also passed Bottas four laps from the end. He finished fourth and set the fastest lap of the race. Bottas was fifth, his best result of the season so far, which he himself called “a step forward” (source: Wikipedia).

At Ferrari, strategy decided the intra-team battle. Fernando Alonso switched to three stops to respond to Vettel. That was not enough against the Red Bull, but on fresh tyres he caught Räikkönen a few laps from the end and finished sixth. Räikkönen made it through on two stops but struggled with tyre wear and finished seventh, a lap down (sources: grandprix.com, formula1.com).

Romain Grosjean scored Lotus's first points of the year in eighth. Force India scored with both cars, with Sergio Pérez ninth and Nico Hülkenberg tenth. McLaren, on the other hand, came away empty-handed: Button was eleventh and Kevin Magnussen twelfth.

Only two drivers retired:

• Jean-Éric Vergne (Toro Rosso) retired after 24 laps with an exhaust failure. He had been given a ten-place grid penalty for an unsafe release in free practice and started from grid position 21.
• Kamui Kobayashi (Caterham) parked his car after 34 laps with a brake failure. According to Wikipedia, his left front brake failed, but he avoided a crash and still made it back to the pits.

• Winners: Vettel gained eleven places, more than anyone else. Despite his penalty, Maldonado climbed from the back of the grid to 15th. Ricciardo got to keep his first podium trophy.
• Losers: Felipe Massa lost four places and, after three stops, could only finish 13th. According to formula1.com, he was stuck in traffic early on. Grosjean and Button each lost three positions, and McLaren left without points.

The win put Hamilton top of the 2014 standings on 100 points, three ahead of Rosberg on 97. Well behind came Alonso (49), Vettel (45) and Ricciardo (39). In the constructors' standings, Mercedes already had more than twice as many points as Red Bull, 197 to 84, with Ferrari on 66.

For Hamilton it was a fourth win in a row, his 26th Grand Prix win overall and his first in Spain. For Mercedes it was the fifth win from the fifth race of the season (source: Wikipedia). The race clearly showed the state of play in the first year of the turbo-hybrid era: the Silver Arrows were in a league of their own, and the only threat to them was each other. The close team-mate duel in Barcelona already hinted at how bitterly the title race between Hamilton and Rosberg would be fought.