Hamilton stays close to Vettel but settles for second

Vettel produced another masterclass performance in a Spanish Grand Prix that finally served up some long-overdue entertainment.

Even Red Bull team principal Christian Horner described what has unfolded at Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya in past years as a “drone-a-thon”, with the previous 10 winners all coming from pole.

But reigning world champion Vettel ended that statistic as tactics and a breathtaking defensive display over the closing laps allowed him to take his 14th career win and open up a 41-point cushion in the standings.

Credit must go to Lewis Hamilton for pushing Vettel all the way to the wire after McLaren had been trounced by Red Bull in qualifying as the Briton and team-mate Jenson Button were a second off the pace.

Come the chequered flag, however, Vettel’s margin of victory over Hamilton was a slender 0.6secs, with Button, a further 35 seconds adrift.

Unusually, Vettel dispensed with his usual cry of ‘Yes’ over the in-car radio after taking the win, and instead turned back the clock several years as he sang “Ring-ding-ding-ding-a-ling.”

Asked for an explanation, Vettel said: “It’s a long story, to be honest.

“The first time we picked it up was in 2009 at Silverstone when we won the grand prix there.

“It’s a bit of a joke between my race engineer (Guillaume Roquelin) and myself that he comes on the radio and does this crazy impression, and if I feel like it, I do it back.”

It was the battle over the closing stages, though, that captured the imagination, with Hamilton pushing Vettel to the limit, only to fall narrowly short.

“He tried everything he could,” said Vettel.

“McLaren and Lewis gave us a very hard time, so it was quite a big relief to see the chequered flag. We made it, and I am very, very happy.”

Hamilton admitted to giving it his all, particularly after losing a place at the start to a flying Fernando Alonso in his Ferrari off the line.

Pit-stop strategy elevated Hamilton up to second, and with it the crack at Vettel.

“I was quite impressed with the job we were able to do, myself and Jenson, considering their car is quite a good step faster than ours,” said Hamilton.

“Our race pace really has improved since the last race so that was a positive, but I just wasn’t able to follow Sebastian at times.

“But the pit stops were much, much better, and to be able to apply the pressure to a Red Bull, considering the circumstances, is quite an achievement.”

Button suffered a disastrous start, dropping from fifth on the grid to 10th by the end of the first lap.

But careful management of his tyres, the deployment of a three-stop strategy – compared to four for those around him – and two superb overtaking moves on Red Bull’s Mark Webber and Fernando Alonso in his Ferrari gave the 31-year-old a richly-deserved third.

“My first lap was an absolute disaster,” exclaimed Button.

“But I was able to pick people off, and with a fantastic strategy, we were able to get onto the podium.

“Two weeks ago (in Turkey) it wasn’t the right call, but this week it was good to have fought my way through and get some nice points. I really feel like I raced.”

Pole man Webber had to settle for fourth, predominantly due to the fact he spent most of the race stuck behind Alonso, who was down in fifth come the conclusion, and astonishingly a lap behind.

Only the top four drivers finished on the same lap such was the dominance of Red Bull and McLaren, leaving those at Ferrari as red faced as their cars.

“There is no denying that being lapped hurts,” said team principal Stefano Domenicali.

“We need to provide Fernando and Felipe (Massa) with a car with which they can fight all the way to the end of a race, and not just in the first part.”

Michael Schumacher had the upper-hand over Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg for once as they finished sixth and seventh.

From last on the grid after a fire in practice prevented him from competing in qualifying, Nick Heidfeld was a stunning eighth in his Renault ahead of the Sauber pair of Sergio Perez and Kamui Kobayashi, with Force India’s Paul di Resta just outside the points in 12th.

Reliability less of an issue for Virgin, says Booth

JOHN Booth is confident a double finish in Spain marks the end of Marussia Virgin Racing’s reliability problems.

Save for the odd failure that might thwart them in the grands prix to come, the Rotherham man believes his Yorkshire team now have the platform on which to cut the gap on the teams in midfield.

And such a breakthrough cannot come quick enough for a team that is well off the pace being set by the marques they are chasing.

Timo Glock and Jerome D’Ambrosio finished 19th and 20th respectively yesterday, but they were once again left behind in Saturday qualifying as their close rivals Lotus took a giant leap forward by getting Heikki Kovalainen into the second session.

The Finn eventually qualified 15th and although he crashed out at the Circuit de Catalunya, it was a performance that underlined how much time the Dinnington team have to make up.

They were a second slower than the Lotus of Jarno Trulli during the race and two-and-a-half seconds outside the time required to reach the second session of Saturday qualifying.

Nevertheless, another good reliability performance means they head to Monaco for next week’s sixth round confident they can finally begin concentrating on maximising their recent downforce upgrade.

Team principal Booth said: “In terms of the team performance it was another strong weekend in which we have completed the first five-race cycle on the gearbox, which is a huge improvement compared to last year.

“Now we have our reliability issues behind us, we need to focus on performance developments for the car.”

On the race itself, which saw Virgin adopt a three-stop strategy with hard tyres used for the final stint, Booth said: “Timo struggled in the first stint with a set of tyres which had a small vibration issue. We picked this up after qualifying but since we needed to run all three sets of our option tyres in the race, we elected to use that set in the stint which we thought would be most plagued by traffic.

“It looks in general that our pace was a little bit better than we thought compared to the front-runners and we also didn’t see the traffic we expected in the first stint. After stopping for a new set of option tyres Timo made light work of getting past Liuzzi and was able to run at his true pace for the rest of the race.”

Glock was clocking lap times almost a second quicker than rookie team-mate D’Ambrosio, but Booth explained: “Jerome struggled a bit with his braking stability throughout the weekend and this seems to have harmed his pace.”

D’Ambrosio said: “We need to look at a small issue with the brakes but apart from that everything went smoothly.”