Dieter Zetsche, the moustachioed Chairman of Daimler AG, was in Spain to see Mercedes lock out the front row of a Grand Prix grid for the first time since the 1950s. But that was to be the high point of the weekend for the Three-pointed Star.
Dr Zetsche was unable to witness a follow-up to the days of dominance by Juan Manuel Fangio and Stirling Moss as Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton went dramatically backwards to finish sixth and, even worse for Hamilton, 12th. Ross Brawn, Mercedes team principal, summed up their dismal showing in the fifth round of the F1 World Championship: ‘It’s frustrating to have a car with a good core performance – and then you have to tip-toe in the race.’
Brawn was referring to a failure to convert the inherent speed of the Mercedes into the crucial ability to make the tyres last for more than one quick lap.
Sebastian Vettel, who finished fourth after starting third in the Red Bull, put it another way when he said: ‘We were racing to the pace of the tyres, not the car.’
While all of this may have been true, it was the same for everyone and it was Ferrari who managed better than the other 10 teams. That’s not to say having four pit stops was ideal but, given the circumstances, Fernando Alonso made the most of them to take his second win of the season, with team-mate Felipe Massa scoring his first podium of 2013 with third.
Splitting the red cars, Kimi Räikkonen continued his impressive consistency by finishing second for the third race in succession to move within four points of championship leader, Vettel.
Alonso has leap-frogged Hamilton into third place in the standings thanks to a drive that delighted his home crowd. The Spaniard put his 32nd win down to a number of factors – improvements to the car; management of tyres; perfect strategy – but that undersells an extraordinary and typically aggressive first lap.
Starting from fifth, Alonso used his KERS power boost for the long run to the first turn but, cleverly, saved some of it for the exit of the third corner. With Räikkonen and Hamilton running line-astern through the right-hander, Alonso first went round the outside of the Lotus and then placed himself alongside Hamilton before using the remaining KERS to power ahead of the Mercedes and take the line into Turn 4. It was an audacious move that positioned him perfectly for an early pit stop, a very fast out lap and a move ahead of Rosberg and Vettel when they changed tyres a lap later. Job done.
From then on, it was case of finding the right balance between speed and tyre conservation; two aspects well suited to both the driver and his car as the highest track temperature of the weekend brought much higher tyre degradation than expected.
Three pit stops were the fastest way to win the race. Vettel tried this strategy but, in the end, a necessary fourth stop meant he dropped behind Massa. As mentioned, Alonso also changed tyres four times and such was his advantage that he maintained his lead over the three-stopping Räikkonen. In fact, Alonso’s final stop was brought forward by two laps because of a slowly deflating rear tyre but not even that potential disaster threatened his first win at home since 2006.
A Ferrari double podium was the one piece of good news for Pat Fry after the team’s technical director had been rushed to hospital on Saturday for an emergency operation on his appendix. Fry expects to be back in action at Monaco in two weeks’ time. For teams such as McLaren finishing a distant eighth (Jenson Button) and ninth (Sergio Perez), not to mention Mercedes, the equivalent of major surgery is required as the season gets into its stride.
