Mercedes land 1-2 punch at Spanish Grand Prix

After 31 laps of Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton was sitting in a frustrated third place for Mercedes-GP.

The world champion and championship leader had been stuck behind the Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel after making a poor start, and he could see teammate Nico Rosberg leading the race and disappearing off into the distance.

Mercedes made the decision to move Hamilton to a three-stop pit strategy in a bid to get him some free air, with the majority of the front-runners targeting only two stops, and the move proved to be inspired.

When Hamilton crossed the finish line on Lap 66 17.5 seconds behind Rosberg to finish second, he was 27.8 seconds ahead of third-placed Vettel.

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When you add in the fact that Hamilton had to make an extra pit stop compared to Vettel, with the average duration of a stop – from slowing to enter the pitlane to getting back upto speed leaving it – lasting 22 seconds, then Hamilton made up almost 50 seconds on the best non-Mercedes car in 35 laps.

Hamilton’s first lap in clear air away from Vettel was three seconds faster and that set the tone for his charge, and in the closing stages the cruising Rosberg was the only man to be within two seconds of the double world champion.

It was a pretty staggering performance, and you could understand why Hamilton was not too downbeat about being beaten by his teammate for the first time this season and seeing his championship lead trimmed to 20 points.

“If this is a difficult weekend for me, I’ll definitely take it,” he said.

This was arguably the first real glimpse of just how quick the F1 W106 chassis is this season.

Clearly rattled by their surprising loss to Vettel and Ferrari in March, when tyre wear and a botched pit strategy compromised the German team’s race, the attitude in China and Bahrain was to do what they needed to do to win but no more than that as they worried about tyre degradation.

But this was Mercedes unleashed yesterday – or at least in the case of Hamilton, as their other car drove a rather more textbook race.

Rosberg controlled things at the front after converting pole position into the lead at the start, and his was a classic Mercedes approach in 2015.

He controlled the gap initially to Vettel, who had passed the slow-starting Hamilton on the run down to Turn 1 at the start, at around seven seconds and then looked after his tyres.

He ran a long middle stint, which was not necessarily the quickest strategy but was the most sensible tactic for covering any threat from behind, and it was a deserved victory for Rosberg.

“It was a perfect weekend,” the German said of the ninth win of his career and first since Brazil last November. “Perfect to be on pole and then to win the race like this. The car has been awesome all weekend.”

It was important for Rosberg to stop Hamilton’s run of success over him, with the Briton having beaten him in every qualifying session and race before the weekend.

But Rosberg was the quicker of the two Mercedes men in qualifying in Barcelona, and it set him up for his comfortable afternoon at the office.

With Monaco next on May 24, a race Rosberg has won for the past two years, he has a real chance to build his own momentum and give F1 fans hope Hamilton is not going to run away with the title.

It was Mercedes’s third one-two of the season, and Vettel acknowledged that he and Ferrari had no answer to Hamilton once they had changed their strategy.

“Unfortunately, we didn’t have the pace when they switched to three stops,” the four-time world champion said. “We tried everything we could – it’s never easy.”

gcaygill@thenational.ae

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