Sebastian Vettel continued his early season domination at the Circuit De Catalunya this weekend; with his fourth win from the five races held so far in 2011. Although Vettel became the eventual winner, the race was nowhere near as predictable and lacklustre as previous Grand Prix's held at the Barcelona circuit, and produced a race filled with strategic interest, overtaking throughout, and a number of interesting outcomes come the end of Sunday's race. After the Friday and Saturday practice sessions in Spain, it appeared that as seen so clearly last year, that Red Bull had well and truly stole the march on its rivals; holding on average a lap by lap advantage of half a second. This widely accepted statistic, along with the strength of Webber & Vettel’s long run pace on the newly introduced extra hard tyres, appeared to mirror that of the 2010 race in which Red Bull had clearly dominated.
However, come Sundays race, a blistering start from home hero Fernando Alonso ensured that Red Bulls front row lock out was immediately interrupted; with Alonso storming from his happily achieved 4th place on the grid, proceeding to nail Lewis Hamilton for third immediately off the line, before a master class in how to slipstream and position a Formula One car meant that he held the lead on the inside, going into turn one. Further down the field, Jenson Button's average weekend took a turn for the worse, with the McLaren driver suffering a dismal start and falling to 10th place in the pack, come the end of lap one. He however, would come into play in the closing stages of the race.
During the first two stints, the positions at the front remained unchanged; Alonso continued to lead Vettel, from Webber, and from Hamilton, all in close company, stretching the gap to fifth place man, Vitaly Petrov who was continuing his impressive early season form. The first round of stops came early, with Vettel the first of the leaders to come in on lap 10. Alonso and Webber covered him on the following lap, making their stops. Vettel had to pass Button and Massa on his out lap and did so decisively to keep his challenge alive. Come the end of the race, it could be argued that that these two moves on one lap, are what gave the Vettel the race win. The first major change in positions at the front came during the races second stage of pit stops on laps 17 & 18; Vettel choosing to blink first by going on to a new set of option tyres one lap prior to that of team mate Mark Webber, and race leader Alonso. An extra lap on the new rubber ensured that as he entered the first corner on lap 18 in front of Alonso (who remained ahead of Webber after the pit stops),was charging down the pit exit. But perhaps the cleverest move of the top four drivers came from McLaren, who decided to pit Hamilton a further four laps into the race on lap 22, which in turn meant that he had managed to also jump Alonso and Webber for second place, much like Vettel.
From the conclusion of the second stage of pit stops, it became a clear two-horse race for the victory, with Vettel leading a resurgent Hamilton throughout the remainder of the race. To many onlookers, including those situated in the Red Bull garage, the seemingly increased and superior race pace of Hamilton’s McLaren was a massive surprise; throughout the second half of the race, Hamilton continued to hone in on the Red Bull, both of the soft tyres during the third stint, and also when on the much less favourable Hard compound Pirelli rubber during the fourth and fifth stint. However, come the end of the race, a master class in defensive driving from Sebastian Vettel, meant that he went on to claim his 14th career victory; one that was arguably potentially his best, after crossing the line a mere 0.6 of a second ahead of the equally impressive Lewis Hamilton. In a distant third position, Jenson Button crossed the line over half a minute behind the Hamilton and Vettel duel; after a largely impressive three stop strategy hauled him up from 10th place after the first lap. Button had passed Webber for fourth place on lap 36 his soft tyres making all the difference and he passed Alonso later on the same lap. Due to the advantage of his soft tyres compared to the hard tyres on Webber and Alonso’ s cars, Button was able to pull out a gap of over 20 seconds; enough to ensure that when on the less favourable hard tyres in the final stint, he would be unable to be caught by either Webber or Alonso. Button made this strategy work beautifully, and crossed the finishing line 12 seconds ahead of Mark Webbers disappointing fourth place finish; the last person to cross the line on the lead lap.
After leading the race so cleverly during the first two stints, Fernando Alonso finished a dismal fifth place after a promising start, above expectations To add salt to the wound, Alonso was sensationally lapped during the race’s latter stages, after losing a massive1.5 seconds on average per lap to the leaders during the final two stints of the race on the hard compound rubber.
Outside the top five, a much improve performance by Michael Schumacher propelled him up to sixth position at the chequered flag, ahead of team mate Nico Rosberg, after a sophisticated performance of clever strategy and experience in defending his position. Nick Heidfeld put in a strong performance after his last place grid position in order to clinch eight position, ahead of a respectable showing from Sauber; Sergio Perez opening his account with 9th place finish, ahead of a brilliant performance by Kamui Kobayashi who was 30 seconds adrift of the field come the end of lap one, after suffering a first lap puncture.
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