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Fernando Alonso drove another superb race
for Scuderia Ferrari to finish his home
race, the Spanish Grand Prix in second
place, thus thrilling the partisan crowd who
cheered him on throughout the 66 lap race
all the way to the podium. |
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Fernando
Alonso drove another superb race to finish his home
race, the Spanish Grand Prix in second place, thus
thrilling the partisan crowd who cheered him on
throughout the 66 lap race all the way to the podium. In
the other Scuderia Ferrari F2012, Felipe Massa had a
tougher time, which was to be expected given his grid
position and he eventually came home in fifteenth place.
If the spectators in the grandstands would have
preferred to see the man from Oviedo on the top step, no
one could deny the win was not totally deserved for
Pastor Maldonaldo and the Williams team. The Venezuelan
had never before stood on a Formula 1 podium and he went
straight to the winner’s slot. He was lifted on the
shoulders by Fernando and the third placed man, Kimi
Raikkonen in the Lotus. This result puts Fernando Alonso
in the lead in the Drivers’ championship, equal on 61
points with Sebastian Vettel.
Having qualified third and seventeenth, Fernando and
Felipe found themselves promoted to second and
sixteenth, as Lewis Hamilton was relegated to the back
of the grid for a rule infringement in qualifying. The
main effect of this obviously enough is that the Spanish
Ferrari man now had a clear view of the track ahead from
the front row of the grid. The weather had changed and
rain was apparently falling about 60 kilometres away
from Montmelo, as the race got underway with the entire
field on the Soft Option tyre. As the lights went out,
Fernando and the pole man were neck and neck going down
to Turn 1 as the Williams tried to force the Ferrari
wide, but as you could tell without looking from the
huge roar from the crowd, it was the red car that
emerged in front, coming out of the corner. Behind
Maldonaldo came Raikkonen, Rosberg, Grosjean, Schumacher
in sixth, then Vettel, Button, Kobayashi, and Vergne
completing the top ten, with Felipe right behind him in
eleventh having moved up five places, running new tyres.
By lap 6, Fernando led by 1.5, while third placed
Raikkonen in the Lotus was 2.6 behind the Williams, then
came a big 5.2 gap to fourth placed Rosberg. The Red
Bulls were the first to pit, Webber on lap 6, Vettel one
lap later. Kobayashi came in for tyres from eighth in
the Sauber on lap 8. Rosberg, Button, Di Resta pitted
next time. Lap 10 was a busy one in pit lane, as Alonso,
Grosjean Schumacher, Vergne, Massa, Hulkenberg, Petrov
and de lap Rosa came in. Next lap it was Maldonaldo and
Raikkonen’s turn as well as Ricciardo. Having started
24th and last, Hamilton, yet to stop had made it all the
way to fourth place by lap 12, when Fernando was back in
the lead, now 3.4 ahead of Maldonaldo. Lap 11 saw
Schumacher and Senna collide putting them both out of
the race.
Hamilton was the last to stop on lap 14, so the order on
15 was Alonso and Maldonaldo(Williams) three seconds
apart, followed by Raikkonen, (Lotus) Rosberg
(Mercedes), Grosjean (Lotus), Vettel (Red Bull,) Button
(McLaren,) Kobayashi (Sauber,) Webber (Red Bull,) Di
Resta (Force India) 10th, Vergne (Toro Rosso,) Massa 12th
right on the back of the Frenchman’s gearbox. When
Webber pitted for a new nose, Felipe moved up to
eleventh, with Hamilton’s McLaren less than half a
second behind him. The gap between Fernando and
Maldonaldo however had come down to just 1.7 by lap 20,
while a bit further back, Grosjean had passed Rosberg
for fourth. With Felipe stuck behind Vergne, Hamilton
was right on the tail of the Brazilian’s F2012. Felipe
moved up as Vergne came in for tyres on lap 23. On the
next lap, Maldonaldo pitted from second. Lap 25 saw
Button come in from sixth and Ricciardo from 11th.
Fernando made his second stop on lap 26,as did Grosjean,
Kobayashi. Raikkonen and Vettel came in on 27, as
Hamilton was trying everything to pass Felipe, getting
alongside the Ferrari a couple of times on lap 28.
Unfortunately, the stewards deemed the Brazilian had
failed to slow for yellow flags on the main straight and
inflicted a drive-through penalty on him, which he took
on lap 28 dropping him down to 16th. Vettel was given
the same penalty.
The second run of pit stops had not gone the Scuderia’s
way and Fernando now found himself second to Maldonaldo,
having been badly delayed by backmarker Pic, in the
Marussia and he was 7 seconds off the Williams and 12.3
ahead of Raikkonen. Lap 29 and Felipe came back into the
pits to change tyres. On lap 37, Felipe was up to 15th
having passed Perez. Then he got Di Resta, but slowed by
the Force India, Button was able to get ahead of the
Ferrari so that Felipe was just outside the points in
11th place on lap 41. As Maldonaldo made his third pit
stop at this time a slow one because of a problem on the
left rear wheel - Fernando found himself back in the
lead ahead of Raikkonen, with the Williams back in third
ahead of Grosjean.
Fernando made his third stop on lap 44, which left
Raikkonen, who would have to stop again, leading
Maldonaldo by 0.7 while the Venezuelan had 3.1 in hand
over the third placed Ferrari and Felipe was now in the
points in ninth place, until he made his final stop on
lap 45. On new tyres, Fernando was catching the Williams
with the gap 1.3 on lap 46, with 20 to go. However, as
the Finn’s tyres were going off, Maldonaldo actually
passed him on the track and Fernando was delayed
slightly as he too had to overtake the Lotus. Lap 48 and
the gap was 1.4 at the front as Raikkonen made his last
stop. Tyre degradation in the last few laps looked like
being the key. Lap 50 and the gap was only 0.8, then
Fernando was right on the tail of the Williams. Ahead of
these two on the road, Di Resta was being shown the blue
flag as Felipe tried to pass him for 14th. As these
groups passed one another the gap opened to 1.3 between
Maldonaldo and Fernando. But it was back to 0.8 with
just 10 laps to go and the crowd was on its feet urging
their hero on, as it was 0.6 on 57. All eyes were on the
two leaders, but behind them was Raikkonen, the fastest
man on track and he was catching the Ferrari at a rate
of about one and a half second per lap but he was still
over 10 seconds away with 7 laps remaining. In the
closing stages, the Ferrari man could no longer
challenge the leader and he came home second ahead of
Raikkonen. The rest of the points went to the Finn’s
team-mate, Grosjean, followed by Kobayashi, Vettel,
Rosberg, Hamilton, Button, Hulkenberg.
The next round is the most famous race on the calendar,
in Monaco in a fortnight’s time.
Stefano Domenicali:
We came to Spain with the double objective of making
progress in terms of performance and for Fernando to
stay in touch with the leaders of the Drivers’
classification: this afternoon we can say we achieved
both our goals. It’s a shame for Felipe who has been
plagued with bad luck all weekend: yesterday there was
traffic in qualifying and today, a penalty probably
prevented him from finishing in the points after he had
made up a lot of places at the start. Once again,
Fernando drove an extraordinary race, fighting for the
win from the first to the last lap. There were some
unfortunate incidents, getting past Pic for example, but
we must always admit that, in the closing stages of the
final stint of the race there was no longer a margin to
attack Maldonaldo. I want to take this opportunity to
congratulate Pastor for his first Formula 1 win and
Williams for returning to winning ways after a break of
several years: yesterday, Sir Frank shared with the
world of F1 a celebration for his seventieth birthday
and it seems that someone up there was also aware of it
and wanted to give him a present! As from tomorrow, we
will return to thinking about the development of our
car, because we are not yet fast enough to fight
consistently for a podium finish, which is the only
option if we want to be in the hunt for the title. The
championship is incredibly finely balanced, as can be
seen from the fact we have had five different winning
teams in as many Grands Prix. Despite all the
difficulties we have experienced in this first part of
the season, Fernando leads the classification along with
the reigning champion: this must be a boost for all our
people who work at home and at the track. We expect
Felipe to react and fight back after this unlucky
weekend, starting in Monaco: we absolutely need his
points to also fight for the Constructors’ title.”
Fernando Alonso: “This second place
feels like a victory. Having finished the race in Sakhir
almost a minute off the winner, today we overtook one of
the two Red Bulls and we fought right to the very end
for the win. On top of that, we have made up a lot of
points on the Red Bull and the McLaren drivers, which
makes the outcome of this weekend even more positive. At
the end of the second stint of the race came the key
moment: maybe Maldonaldo pitted a bit early and we
stayed out on track, but we lost time behind a
backmarker for a whole lap, partly because there was a
yellow flag on the last part of the main straight. Then,
with seven laps to go, I suddenly lost grip at the rear:
I asked the team if something was broken because the
handling of the car changed from one moment to the next,
for no apparent reason. However, in the final stages,
the Williams was still very quick and, right at the end,
we were also lucky to hang onto second place as Kimi was
coming back at me. This championship is very hard to
interpret with all the different winners and the
performance of the top teams going up and down from race
to race. We definitely did not do the best job when it
came to designing the car – there is still much to do –
but we can be proud of how we got the most out of our
potential, probably over and above the limits of the
car. After two Grands Prix – China and Bahrain – where
we suffered a lot, to be back for the podium is very
positive and gives us confidence for the rest of the
Championship. We must continue to bring updates all the
time for the car, because it is all very close and the
slightest thing can make the difference.”
Felipe Massa: “Today my race was
affected by a penalty that I had to take on lap 28.
Honestly, I don’t think I did anything wrong and I
believe it is better to look into the detail of what
happened, because I was in the middle of a group of cars
and I definitely did not try to overtake anyone. It’s a
real shame, because up until then, the race was going
well for me and a place in the top ten was comfortably
within my reach. I was in the group with the Red Bulls
and the McLarens and I could match their pace. I had a
good opening lap when I managed to make up a lot of
places. I am happy that Fernando was able to fight for
the win all the way to the end, as it shows our car’s
potential has definitely improved: we still don’t have
the quickest car but it seems we are going down the
right road. I want to congratulate Pastor, who is a
great friend: the taste of a first Formula 1 win is
something amazing and I can understand how he feels
right now.”
Pat Fry: “In the race, we again confirmed that we have
made a step forward in terms of the performance of our
package, but it is not yet enough. Also today, we
managed to make the most of our potential with Fernando,
while Felipe was definitely not lucky with the penalty
that ruined what, up to that point, had been a pretty
good race. We knew tyre degradation would be the key and
so it turned out. The fight with Maldonaldo was very
close and maybe some incidents played a deciding role,
such as at the time of the second stop and in the final
moments of the race, when Fernando suddenly felt a drop
in performance, the causes of which are not yet clear.
Second is an absolutely positive result but, to make an
objective evaluation, we have to take into account all
the elements over the weekend, even those outside our
own operation, which produced this race result. There is
still a lot of work to do to have a car that is really
capable of fighting for the win at every track and in
all conditions. Having said that, I am equally sure that
having one of our drivers leading the classification,
even if he is equal on points with Vettel, represents a
reward for the work everyone has done to raise our
performance level and it is also a further motivation to
do even better in the near future.”
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