FORMULA ONE:SEBASTIAN VETTEL resisted a late charge from Lewis Hamilton to tighten his grip on the Formula One drivers' championship with his fourth win from five races at yesterday's Spanish Grand Prix.
Vettel had been forced to relinquish his hold on the front of the grid on Saturday, being eclipsed by team-mate Mark Webber for pole position but the Australian wouldn’t carry that advantage past the first turn at the race start as Vettel made the better getaway and edged ahead as the pair powered toward the first corner.
But while the twin Red Bulls duelled for supremacy, Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, benefiting from a lightning-quick start, flashed past down the inside, leaving Vettel and Webber in his wake.
It was to stay that way through the first two stints of the race. Grands Prix at the technically challenging Circuit de Catalunya come with the reputation of being tediously processional, and while this edition was enlivened by a number of superb overtaking moves, neither the drag reduction system nor KERS had a marked effect and that inability to close down rivals left Vettel and Webber boxed in behind Alonso for much of the race. Any attempt on the lead would have to be done in the pits stop.
Vettel narrowly missed out on his first attempt as he emerged from his stop in traffic, but his second stop, a lap earlier than the Spaniard’s, worked perfectly as the extra tour on fresh tyres allowed him to eke out the gap necessary to surge into the lead as Alonso exited pitlane.
That should have led, a little late admittedly, to the widely predicted dominant march to victory for Vettel. McLaren, though, had other ideas and, having stayed with Vettel through the opening phases thanks to Alonso’s slower pace, Hamilton was able to maximise his own four-stop strategy to maintain pursuit.
Ten laps from home it looked like the McLaren driver might have a real chance when Vettel was told by his team to once again refrain from using his KERS button. Over the course of the final laps Hamilton pushed Vettel hard, edging close through DRS and KERS only for Vettel to position his car wide through the racing line and deny any passing move. But with the Red Bull better through the high speed corners Hamilton could never sustain a really meaningful attack and Vettel eventually, gratefully, crossed the line for his fourth win of the season.
“It was pretty tough,” he said afterwards. “It was really close, but thankfully in last two laps I got quite a good run in the last sector and it was enough to make it stick.
“On top of that we had sometimes KERS on and sometimes off, so not an easy race, and McLaren and Lewis gave us a very, very hard time. I am very happy, a great result and a confirmation we are very strong but surely today was not as not expected by many people. We saw Ferrari there and McLaren gave us a hard time. That is why I am more happy, as we made it with these guys pushing so hard.”
Hamilton admitted he was satisfied to have finished second and was candid about his chances of taking victory. “I was able to keep with them just for a while but as the race went on we clearly had some serious pace but it was very, very tough to get past Sebastian in the end,” he said.
McLaren were also able to work a three-stop strategy to boost Jenson Button to third, ahead of Webber, who after floundering behind Alonso for much of the race, eventually freed himself from the Ferrari driver’s clutches in the final stops. It was, however, too late for the Australian to chase down and pass Button.
It was an even bleaker day for Ferrari, with Alonso being lapped by the top four and Felipe Massa retiring with a suspected gearbox problem. But it was a better afternoon for Renault’s Nick Heidfled. On Saturday the German’s Renault had been engulfed in flame after a cracked exhaust forced him to abandon his car midway through practice. It sidelined him from qualifying and left him starting the race from pitlane.
The only bonus was he had almost a full complement of fresh tyres and Heidfeld used them expertly to power from the back to an eventual eighth place finish, three ahead of his team-mate Vitaly Petrov, who had started sixth.
Spanish Grand Prix, Barcelona, (66 Laps): 1 S Vettel (Ger) Red Bull 1hr 39mins 03.301secs, 2 L Hamilton (Gbr) McLaren 1:39:03.931, 3 J Button (Gbr) McLaren 1:39:38.998, 4 M Webber (Aus) Red Bull 1:39:51.267, 5 F Alonso (Spa) Ferrari at 1 Lap, 6 M Schumacher (Ger) Mercedes GP at 1 Lap, 7 N Rosberg (Ger) Mercedes GP at 1 Lap, 8 N Heidfeld (Ger) Renault at 1 Lap, 9 S Perez (Mex) Sauber-Ferrari at 1 Lap, 10 K Kobayashi (Jpn) Sauber-Ferrari at 1 Lap, 11 V Petrov (Rus) Renault at 1 Lap, 12 P di Resta (Gbr) Force India at 1 Lap, 13 A Sutil (Ger) Force India at 1 Lap, 14 S Buemi (Swi) Scuderia Toro Rosso at 1 Lap, 15 P Maldonado (Ven) Williams at 1 Lap, 16 J Alguersuari (Spa) Scuderia Toro Rosso at 2 Laps, 17 R Barrichello (Bra) Williams at 2 Laps, 18 J Trulli (Ita) Lotus F1 at 2 Laps, 19 T Glock (Ger) Virgin Racing at 3 Laps, 20 J d’Ambrosio (Bel) Virgin Racing at 4 Laps, 21 N Karthikeyan (Ind) HRT-F1 at 5 Laps; Not Classified: 22 F Massa (Bra) Ferrari 58 Laps completed, 23 H Kovalainen (Fin) Lotus F1 48 Laps, 24 V Liuzzi (Ita) HRT-F1 28 Laps.
