Vettel Wins Spanish GP
Vetterl wins his fourth title of the season
Sebastian Vettel has picked his fourth title of the year after coming first at the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona. The German, who started the race on the second position, managed to outstrip his team-mate Mark Webber and cross the finish line first at one hour, 39 minutes and 3,301 seconds.
Lewis Hamilton, winner of this year’s Turkish GP, came second, 0,630 seconds behind the German, while Jenson Button gave McLaren the second podium position, coming 35,697 seconds behind the world champion. Webber, who had come fastest in the free practices as well as in the qualifying, failed to set a podium place, arriving fourth, 47,966 seconds behind his team-mate.
“People were saying today would be a boring race. But at turn one these people got very small and silent. At the end Lewis and I were sliding like crazy, finding our way on the limit of our tyres,” said Vettel. On the other side, Hamitlon admitted German’s victory claiming that “as the race went on we clearly had some serious pace but it was very, very tough to get past Sebastian in the end.”
It was a crazy last lap which highlighted a crazy run between Vettel and Hamilton. The Briton threatened with a first place, but 23-year-old’s driver succeeded to keep Hamilton behind him throughout the entire lap. Concerning the poor performers, they were former world champions Fernando Alonso, who is still chasing his first title of the season, and Michael Schumacher.
Both the Spaniard and Mercedes’s cornerstone came one lap behind Vettel. Nine other drivers set the same gap, including Nico Rosberg, Renault’s Nick Heidfeld and Sauber’s Vitaly Petrov. Felipe Massa was forced to pull over with eight laps remaining. Heikki Kovalainen and Vitantonio Liuzzi also abandoned with 18 and 38 laps remaining respectively.
Vettel leads the drivers’ standings with 118 points, 41above the second-placed Hamilton. Mark Webber comes third with 67 points, while Fernando Alonso seems to be far from the top spot, sitting fifth with 51 points. Button is fourth though, ten points above the Spaniard. Felipe Massa lies eighth, while former world champion Michael Schumacher is tenth with 14 points.
As for the team rankings, Red Bull lead the table with 185 points and have plenty of chances to finish the season first for the second time in a row. McLaren are behind them with 138 points, while Ferrari remains third with 75, having Renault just behind them. Mercedes follow them with 40 points. The calendar continues with the Monte Carlo Grand Prix which is set to start on May 26.
