F1: Nico Rosberg wins in Spain

Bar Malaysia, Mercedes has won every race in the season so far. The German automaker must be keen to continue the streak, and continue did they, with another stellar one two from their drivers. However, this time, it was Rosberg’s turn to take the top step of the podium. The German had the more superior launch of the 2 W06s off the line, and was off in the distance, whilst continuing to pull away at a rate of knots. Hamilton reported wheelspin issues during the install lap, and suffered from the same problem in the actual race start. This allowed Vettel to cleanly cruise pass the Mercedes, and it also nearly let the Williams of Bottas through. Both Mercedes were on 2 stoppers originally. But as Rosberg continued to pull away from the pack, and with Hamilton still stuck behind the SF15-T of Vettel, Mercedes had no choice but switch to a 3, with an incredibly short but rapid middle stint on the primes to undercut Vettel. It worked so well, that Hamilton even led the Grand Prix for a short while, but only because Rosberg pitted. The Ferrari duo had an interesting weekend. Whilst the SF15-T seemed to match the W06’s pace in the early stages of the race, the prancing horses seem to fall back as the race went on. Ferrari had a chance of switching to a three stopper to react to Mercedes’ new strategy, but held their horses, and stuck to a 2. Had the strategists at Maranello reacted to Stuttgart’s threat, who knows what will have happened? As for Raikkonen, he had a brilliant start, and a brilliant first couple of laps, before spending most of the race passing cars. He eventually finished 5th.

OneShift Editorial Team

11 May 2015

Bottas drove a relatively uneventful race to finish P4. The Williams driver had a decent getaway, and held his position pretty much from start to finish. Raikkonen, with his rapidly degrading options, proved to be of little threat, courtesy of fresher primes and superior straight line performance of the Williams. Massa, like his former Ferrari teammate, had to get past the slower Toro Rossos at the start, but after that, drove a race pretty similar to his current teammate’s too.

Daniel Ricciardo finally had a trouble free weekend! Throughout the first few races this year, the Renault lump tucked in the rear of the RB11 gave up the ghost on multiple occasions. The crew were concerned that should power unit #5 fail, they will need to take a 10 place grid penalty in Monaco. Kyvat was robbed of a 9th place when the Toro Rosso of Sainz punted the Russian off the track. As for the Red Bull B-team, both cars performed decently in qualy, but their one-lap optimised setup hurt the team badly in the race. Both cars had lacklustre starts, and continued to fall back through the field, before recovering to take a 9th and an 11th.

The sole Lotus of Roman Grosjean crossed the line in 8th. Whilst both Lotuses, like the Ferraris, had decent pace initially, they fell back not long after the start. The Lotus duo were having a thrilling wheel to wheel battle, when contact between them damaged Maldonado’s rear wing end plate. Rather than retire, the mechanics chose to yank off the flapping end plate, before sending him out. He retired before the end of the race. Grosjean, who isn’t the only driver to miss the pitbox this weekend, hit the front jackman and a tyre mechanic in his pitstop, bruising one and injuring the other. Thankfully, both weren’t severely hurt.

We didn’t see much of the Saubers; they lacked the pace which they showed earlier on in the season, qualifying way down in the order, before picking off a few slower cars, perhaps even benefitting from the retirement of one of the McLaren Hondas to claim 12th and 14th.

Hulkenburg told the media that up till the point they get the VJM-08B, the aim now was to limit the damage. Despite having the same powerplant that drives the works team, the Silverstone-based firm had lacked any decent form of pace for much of the season, due to the outdated aero package on said car.

In fact, the only cars slower than the Force Indias were the McLaren Hondas and the Manors. The McLarens had a tough weekend this time round,after Alonso had a brake failure, which nearly injured the front jackman in the pitstop and caused him to retire, and Button had mapping issues, which caused wheelspin as soon as the British driver stomped on the loud pedal. The team are positive that they will be more competitive in Monaco.

Finally, the Manors. As usual, Stevens finishes ahead of Merhi. It is no surprise the team have not made much progress; they are still in the midst of restricting, and the new 2015 car is not ready at the moment.

Pictures used for illustration purposes only.

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