Circuit de Catalunya is a typical old fashion circuit
with gravel instead of tarmac on the outside of many of the corners. During
testing, the teams have clocked up plenty of miles and know the circuit inside
out, so we should see the cars at their best. But then, this track is
notoriously difficult to overtake on, so we may just see someone who qualified
on the front row win once again. But then, predictions haven’t always been 100%
accurate this year.
Circuit: Circuit
de Catalunya
2012 Winner: Pastor
Maldonado
2012 Pole:
Pastor Maldonado
2013 Tyre
Compounds: Medium and Hard
After a three week break, the teams all have various
upgrades for this race. For those with slightly less eagle eyes (like me), the
main difference that stood out was the new Caterham nose, which is slightly
less ugly then the old one and akin to the Sauber’s.
Along with the upgrades also comes the GP2 and (the
rather ugly but now good sounding) GP3 support series’, which will help the
track evolve as they run roughly the same type of tyres. With the running tyre
issues for Formula 1, the extra rubber laid down might just help them stretch
the tyres out, though the suspected 3 or 4 stops required for the race seem to
suggest otherwise. Thankfully, Pirelli seems to be learning and gave the
drivers and extra set of tyres each for practice use only, so hopefully they’ll
actually go out in qualifying.
First practice was wet, though the track dried up as the
session progressed. Despite seriously needing to evaluate their updates, the
McLarens only did three laps with Perez’s car while Button remained in the
garage. The usual suspects were quick, but Alonso came out on top for the large
number of fans who were watching.
In a dry practice 2, the Toro Rossos looked like they
were regaining their performance while Williams appeared to be improving.
However, it wasn’t long before questions of the tyres raised as Paul Di Resta’s
rubber separated from the body of the tyre, forcing him to stop. Elsewhere,
Hamilton spun but was able to quickly recover while Vettel went fastest.
McLaren’s performance didn’t seem to improve throughout
practice 2 and 3, in which Massa went fastest. Hamilton was complaining about
his setup as Mercedes worked on their long run pace, seemingly reasonably happy
as they went into qualifying.
The usual suspects were fast once again, the Ferraris
looking especially strong but it seemed the Williams cars still lacked the pace
they needed and were eliminated along with the Caterhams and Marussias.
Surprisingly, Van der Garde was the quicker of the back two teams with Pic at
the back of the grid and Bianchi and Chilton in that order between them.
In second qualifying, it took 2 minutes before Gutierrez
went out on track, followed by the Red Bulls who continued their use of the
tyres they used in Q1 for a banker in Q2. The Mercedes cars went fastest at the
end of the session ahead of Raikkonen and Alonso, but Massa and Gutierrez
managed to impede Webber and Button respectively, the Briton going out in a
lowly fourteenth while his young teammate made it into Q3, making it the first
time the Mexican had out qualified Button. Both Toro Rossos also went out along
with Sutil and both Saubers, with Hulkenburg unhappy with the performance of
his car.
Raikkonen went out immediately in Q3, but most of the
teams waited in the garage, including Red Bull with most of them only doing a
single run. The single runs resulted in the Mercedes cars locking out the front
row with Rosberg ahead of Hamilton, who still wasn’t happy with his setup.
Vettel lined up next with Raikkonen and the two Ferraris. After qualifying,
Massa and Gutierrez were both given three grid penalties for impeding other
drivers on their qualifying laps.
When the cars eventually got around to starting after
Rosberg’s slow warm up lap/dawdle, the two Mercedes got off the line well with
Vettel breathing down their necks. Alonso got a fantastic start to jump
Raikkonen with Perez and Sutil also getting good starts.
Into the first corner however, Hamilton managed to lock
up his front tyres and ruin his corner entry, allowing now only Vettel through
but also Alonso. Button and Webber further back had regular bad starts off the
line.
Vettel and Alonso stuck with Rosberg who seemed to be
cautious with his tyres from the start, but neither could find a way past on
the tricky circuit. Hamilton gradually dropped away from the leaders with
Raikkonen and a fast starting Massa keeping him company. However, the Briton’s
lock up was giving him issues when braking and it gave Raikkonen a chance to
get by and chase after the lead trio before Massa also found a way past as
Hamilton had to back off almost insanely early to make a corner.
Webber became the first to pit after his bad start left
him in traffic. Several others pit soon after with Maldonado nearly doing a
Button (ie, going into the wrong pit box) and Sutil enduring a long stop.
Grosjean cruised into the pits to retire after a suspension failure.
Alonso was the first of the lead four to pit as Raikkonen
continued to chase them down. The next lap, the remaining three pitted and
Alonso was able to just squeak ahead of Vettel into second, much to the joy of
the crowd. It wasn’t long before Alonso made it past Rosberg, though
technically not into the lead as Gutierrez hadn’t pitted yet and was leading.
Further back, Hamilton was continuing to fall further
down the order having been dropped by Massa. As Rosberg lost out to Vettel and
then Raikkonen ahead, Hamilton was passed by Di Resta and then Riccardo.
In the strategic madness, Webber had made it up into
contention behind Massa but Perez was catching the pair of them on fresher
tyres (with all these pit stops and strategies, it’s difficult to keep track of
who’s on what). Both Red Bulls seemed to be easing off as Vettel was told to
conserve his tyres, something the sister team wasn’t doing as Riccardo hounded
Di Resta before finding a way past the Scot.
Rosberg was managing to hold his own in a distant fifth but
Hamilton continued to slip down, ending up in a short battle he nearly lost
with Maldonado, who’s Williams wasn’t looking even half as strong as it did
last year. The Mercedes team suggested sixth was on the table, but that was
looking to be extremely wishful thinking.
Surprisingly, Gutierrez was looking quite strong, running
much better than he had previously while Hulkenburg struggled. Pic had overcome
his back qualifying to get ahead of the Marussias, though Bianchi had been
forced to pit for a new front wing early in the race.
The Ferraris pulled away from Vettel as Raikkonen caught
the Red Bull, looking much faster. After a few laps, the Finn found a way past
and immediately disappeared up the road in persuit of the Ferraris as his pace
suggested he may even be able to catch Alonso, who had stretched out a huge
lead in front.
As Rob Smedley continued his ever entertaining
encouragement of Massa, Hulkenburg exited his pit box straight into Vergne,
costing the German his front wing and resulting in a drive through. Vergne was
able to continue but later suffered from a similar tyre delamination to Di
Resta in practice. The problem seemed to worsen the damage suffered from
Hulkenburg and the Toro Rosso was forced to retire.
Out of camera, Button had also managed to move up the
order thanks to a three stop strategy, which was only being run by a few
drivers. During the stops as well, Raikkonen managed to get ahead of Massa and
pull away, drawing performance from a set of quite old tyres where the others
couldn’t. However, it was too late to hunt down Alonso who was over ten seconds
ahead.
Massa attempted to catch back up with Raikkonen as the
Red Bulls flew in formation. The McLarens had both managed to make it into the
points and were flying in formation as well while Rosberg continued his obsure
race with Riccardo bringing up the last points paying position. Alonso’s pace
was pretty incredible, allowing him to lap up to 10th position,
including Gutierrez who was running in a strong eleventh.
After a hectic first half of the race, the end was fairly
quiet until Alonso crossed the line to win and the Spanish crowd roared with
delight. Massa’s wife and son were on the pit wall to cheer him home, though
his son seemed to have no idea where he was or what was going on.
Alonso picked up a Spanish flag from the crowd as he went
on his slow down lap, proudly waving it for the roaring crowd. Sadly, the
po-faced rule makers frowned upon such a showing of emotion and dragged him
before the stewarts after he was likely amazed he wasn’t handed a Santander
logo as a trophy. I always find it sad drivers don’t do burn outs or donuts to
celebrate after races and Alonso wasn’t given any penalty for the ‘incident’,
likely just a talking to.
The Ferrari and Lotus look like the strongest packages at
the moment, but next the teams head for the principality of Monaco, the jewel
in Formula 1’s crown. Track position is king around the tight street circuit
and any one of the top teams could sneak a win.
| Driver | Constructor | Race Time | Grid | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | Fernando Alonso | Ferrari | 1:39:16.596 | 5 |
| 2nd | Kimi Raikkonen | Lotus | +9.338 | 4 |
| 3rd | Felipe Massa | Ferrari | +26.049 | 9 |
| 4th | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull | +38.273 | 3 |
| 5th | Mark Webber | Red Bull | +47.963 | 7 |
| 6th | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | +1:08.020 | 1 |
| 7th | Paul Di Resta | Force India | +1:08.988 | 10 |
| 8th | Jenson Button | McLaren | +1:19.506 | 14 |
| 9th | Sergio Perez | McLaren | +1:21.738 | 8 |
| 10th | Daniel Riccardo | Toro Rosso | +1 lap | 11 |
| 11th | Esteban Gutierrez | Sauber | +1 lap | 19 |
| 12th | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | +1 lap | 2 |
| 13th | Adrian Sutil | Force India | +1 lap | 13 |
| 14th | Pastor Maldonado | Williams | +1 lap | 17 |
| 15th | Nico Hulkenburg | Sauber | +1 lap | 15 |
| 16th | Valtteri Bottas | Williams | +1 lap | 16 |
| 17th | Charles Pic | Caterham | +1 lap | 22 |
| 18th | Jules Bianchi | Marussia | +2 laps | 20 |
| 19th | Max Chilton | Marussia | +2 laps | 21 |
| 20th | Jean-Eric Vergne | Toro Rosso | DNF (Damage) | 12 |
| 21st | Giedo Van der Garde | Caterham | DNF (Loose Wheel) | 18 |
| 22nd | Romain Grosjean | Lotus | DNF (Suspension failure) | 6 |
Driver’s Championship:
| Driver | Score | |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | Sebastian Vettel | 89 |
| 2nd | Kimi Raikkonen | 85 (-4) |
| 3rd | Fernando Alonso | 72 (-17) |
| 4th | Lewis Hamilton | 50 (-39) |
| 5th | Felipe Massa | 45 (-44) |
| 6th | Mark Webber | 42 (-47) |
| 7th | Romain Grosjean | 26 (-63) |
| 8th | Paul Di Resta | 26 (-63) |
| 9th | Nico Rosberg | 22 (-67) |
| 10th | Jenson Button | 17 (-72) |
| 11th | Sergio Perez | 12 (-77) |
| 12th | Daniel Riccardo | 7 (-82) |
| 13th | Adrian Sutil | 6 (-83) |
| 14th | Nico Hulkenburg | 5 (-84) |
| 15th | Jean-Eric Vergne | 1 (-88) |
Constructor’s Championship:
| Constructor | Score | |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | Red Bull | 131 |
| 2nd | Ferrari | 117 (-14) |
| 3rd | Lotus | 111 (-20) |
| 4th | Mercedes | 72 (-59) |
| 5th | Force India | 32 (-99) |
| 6th | McLaren | 29 (-102) |
| 7th | Toro Rosso | 8 (-123) |
| 8th | Sauber | 5 (-126) |
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