Spanish Grand Prix Review

Ferrari have turned the pursuit of development even when they have a sizeable advantage over the opposition into an art form, and so emerged from all that pre-race testing still in a league of their own. The final margin of under six seconds covering the top four flattered both McLaren and BMW, who were brought within striking distance thanks to the two safety car periods and the fact that Ferrari were probably only at 80 to 90 per cent capacity for most of the race.

If pressed, some suggest that the red cars had half a second per lap in race trim over the rest of the field. Raikkonen himself was in simply commanding form from Saturday onwards, and never appeared troubled once he had got away cleanly at the start. He now has a nine-point break over Lewis Hamilton, which is not huge with another 14 races remaining, but it appears rather daunting given Ferrari's current pace and the fact that one point covered the top three drivers last year.

The question marks in the Ferrari camp continue to be on Felipe Massa's side of the garage. He pitted a lap earlier than Raikkonen, and yet was almost 0.25s adrift in qualifying. The Brazilian won at Barcelona in 2007 whilst Kimi was still getting used to life on Bridgestones, but the Finn was untouchable here this year, and Massa's inability to repeat his Bahrain form, comparatively speaking, continues to suggest that he's a three-track wonder. He'll probably smash the rest in Turkey next time, but so what?

From the outset of the race weekend it was clear that McLaren would continue to struggle relative to Ferrari, and so Hamilton's damage-limitation mission had to have been 3rd place. That he easily achieved, once he had rounded Robert Kubica by the first corner, and once Fernando Alonso predictably pitted laps earlier than anyone else. But the BMW stayed close enough to Lewis all race to suggest that the white cars haven't fallen off the pace once back in Europe, and Hamilton would have reason to be worried.

To see Kovalainen's car career head-on into a tyre barrier and burrow into it was reminiscent of Michael Schumacher's leg-breaking smash at Silverstone in 1999, or Luciano Burti's terrifying shunt at Spa in 2001. Once again the fact that Heikki escaped with nothing more than concussion is testament to the incredible safety of current F1 cars and the stringent tests that the FIA has instituted. In all seriousness, Max Mosley has been very keen on ensuring that heavy impacts and beatings can be withstood ...

Apart from Nick Heidfeld, Kovalainen was running longer in the first stint than any of the other main contenders, but it's not known how much more fuel he had. Yet it's unlikely he would have posed a serious threat to Hamilton and Kubica. Heikki seems to be taking a calmer approach to things at the moment than the increasingly-flustered Lewis, but he and his team are not stepping up enough to suggest that a breakthrough win will come any time soon.

BMW will be massively encouraged by Kubica's 4th place, as it shows that they have not dropped back in the post-flyaway development drive. Once again it was an unspectacular but thoroughly effective performance from the Pole, who maintains his ascendancy over Heidfeld, especially in qualifying. The 0.5s gap could partially be explained by the fact that the German was to pit three laps after his team-mate, but more telling was that Nick was at one stage genuinely struggling to get past Q2.

Having only qualified 9th, Heidfeld was fortunate that he jumped both Mark Webber and Jarno Trulli at the start, otherwise his race would have been well and truly compromised. BMW may want to consider being not so conservative with his strategy in future races. As it was, Nick's afternoon was compromised anyway once the safety car came out for Kovalainen's crash, and BMW had to pit him when the lane was closed lest he run out of fuel, thus incurring a ten-second stop-go penalty.

Ferrari, McLaren and BMW continue to set the standard for the rest of the field, but Renault have certainly closed the gap. Pat Symonds reckons the team found 0.3s in the pre-race test, but that alone did not explain Alonso's startling qualifying performance. How much of Fernando's front-row slot was the raging-toreador-on-home-soil factor? How much of it was down to a low fuel load? And perhaps more importantly, how much of Renault's improvement in speed has been at the cost of reliability?

In reality, Alonso was never really much hope of getting onto the podium, but his engine lunching itself would come as a concern, especially if it means that Renault are trying to eke too much from a motor that is slightly down-on-power. Nelsinho Piquet has already had reliability problems of his own in Australia and Bahrain. Take away the home advantage, and how Fernando goes at Istanbul will be a better barometer of where Renault really stand.

While Piquet got into Q3 for the first time, his silly early off and then race-ending collision with Sebastien Bourdais continued what has been an unimpressive start to his F1 career. Admittedly, the contretemps with the ex-Champ Car champion was not the Brazilian's fault. He did lunge late, but he had got fully alongside the Toro Rosso at the point of contact. The Frenchman simply didn't know he was there, and his outboard mirrors would not have helped.

REJECT OF THE RACE
Adrian Sutil
Out of control when he hit DC and Vettel

As the Australian continues his excellent form, David Coulthard's value to Red Bull keeps on plummeting. Once again he missed the Q1 cut, and although being barged by Adrian Sutil on the first lap was not his fault, the rest of DC's race was yet again nondescript, and towards the end there was that incident with Timo Glock, the third time in four races he has had a collision due to indecisive blocking. He's not only sounding increasingly like a greybeard, he's starting to drive like one as well.

Despite being overtaken in this race by Alonso and Webber, Toyota were still in with a shout of points as Trulli continues to drive well. Without the communications error which caused Jarno to come in for his second stop earlier than expected, he would surely have finished 6th. After getting into Q3 in the first two races, Glock seems to have found his limit now in Q2, and although in his incident with Coulthard the Scot's wandering was partly to blame, Timo could have avoided losing his front wing.

Sneaking in almost unnoticed into an eventual 6th place was Jenson Button and Honda. Although Rubens Barrichello has had the better of qualifying, Button's race pace in several races this year has been superb, and it was again here, coming 5th in the fastest lap standings. Pitting during the Kovalainen safety car period, the influence of Ross Brawn was evident, as they sacrificed Button's race position by fuelling longer, which in turn allowed him to leapfrog his rivals at the second stops.

Compared to pre-season predictions, Williams however have slipped. Perhaps their relatively limited budget means that they just can't keep up development-wise. Kazuki Nakajima had arguably his best weekend yet, out-qualifying an off-colour Rosberg. Although Nico made a demon start that put him back in front of Nakajima, Kazuki was keeping up and able to pick up the pieces after Rosberg's engine also blew. Williams remain 4th in the constructors' title, but one suspects they won't stay there for long.

With the retirements of Barrichello and Rosberg, Fisichella found himself elevated to a temporary 8th, but a fairly early second stop put paid to any chances of scoring Force India's first points. With good strategy and a little bit of luck, it's the kind of position that Giancarlo may find himself in again this season. But the team's race-by-race protestation that they will reach Q2 look increasingly misguided. In the four events so far, Fisi has started 16th, 17th, 18th and now 19th. The tenth row looks to be the team's place.

Sutil, however, continues to struggle this season, and he did himself no favours with his rather desperate first lap lunge inside Coulthard, such that by the time he connected with the Red Bull he was already well out of control. For that moment of recklessness we award him the 'Reject of the Race' award this time around. The rumours are circulating that the German is on borrowed time, and given that the team have a well-credentialed reserve driver in Vitantonio Liuzzi, if those rumours are real they are also deserved.

With Anthony Davidson out early after another fighting effort in qualifying where he was less than a tenth off Sutil in Q1, what an amazing story it would have been if Sato was able to score a point at the track where he did just that in 2007. For a while he ran as high as 9th and looked to be in with a chance, but a very early second stop relegated him to the back. One hopes that Aguri's latest talks with the Weigl group will lead to a deal which Honda will rubberstamp, so that the team can be saved from extinction.

Apart from Renault, the only team not to see the chequered flag was Toro Rosso, and both the STR02Bs were gone by lap 8. The Sebastien and Sebastian show has had a trouble-prone start to the year. With both Bourdais and Sebastian Vettel being aggressive racers it comes as no particular surprise, but while bad luck has had a part to play, the team's management also needs to encourage their drivers to ensure that they find a way of surviving the opening exchanges unscathed.

This was Vettel's third first-lap incident in four races, and in the only race where the German did not collide with someone on the first lap, in Malaysia, Bourdais flew off the track on lap one instead. This time, yes Sutil spun right in front of Vettel leaving the youngster with nowhere to go, but at the same time one wonders if he could have slowed down even more and applied enough lock to get around the Force India instead of clattering into it. He remains the only driver yet to finish a race this year.