Sebastian Vettel was the winner of the 2011 Spanish GP. The victory has been an easy task for the German despite being under pressure by his main championship rival, Lewis Hamilton during the final part of the race.
The race started with Mark Webber making another bad start, allowing both his teammate Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso to pass him. The Spaniard had a great start and took both Red Bull drivers on the first turn. Alonso stayed in first place until the first pit stop round, followed by Sebastian Vettel, Mark Webber and Lewis Hamilton. Jenson Button also had a very bad start, as he lost the fifth place and has dropped down to 10th.
As we mentioned above, the race was interesting enough until the second pit stop round on lap 18. That was the point where Vettel got on top and decided to stay there until the end. It has also been the point where Alonso started losing time, being unable to keep up with his rivals' pace.
As the race continued, we have seen Lewis Hamilton getting back into the battle with Vettel, a battle that kept going right till the end. The situation, however remained unchanged on top, as Red Bull had the pace to keep the McLaren behind. Jenson Button took the third place with the assist of his 3 pit stop strategy (all others on top had 4). Mark Webber only managed to pass Alonso for P4. The Spaniard has been 2-3 sec slower than the top 4 since then.
Michael Schumacher managed to finish in front of his teammate Nico Rosberg in P6 while Heidfeld, Perez and Kobayashi completed the top ten finishers.
After the 2011 Spanish Grand Prix, we will dare to say that the championship is very close to an early end, as the pace difference between Red Bull and the rest of the teams is chaotic. Sebastian Vettel is going to walk to his second championship as no driver, or car is able to challenge him. There is no difference if his KERS works or not, there is no difference if his strategy is differnet. He has the fastest car on track and it looks like McLaren can only stabilize this gap, while all others are falling further behind. We will not be surprised if we watch Ferrari giving up on this year's car to have better chances on their 2012 design, as this year is nearly lost.
We say all these with full knowledge that the championship is only beginning and with 14 races to go there are plenty of things to be done. But the situation becomes more and more difficult to change, race by race. We really hope to be wrong.
The race results are as follows :
01. Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1h39:03.301
02. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes + 0.630
03. Button McLaren-Mercedes + 35.697
04. Webber Red Bull-Renault + 47.966
05. Alonso Ferrari + 1 lap
06. Schumacher Mercedes + 1 lap
07. Rosberg Mercedes + 1 lap
08. Heidfeld Renault + 1 lap
09. Perez Sauber-Ferrari + 1 lap
10. Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari + 1 lap
11. Petrov Renault + 1 lap
12. Di Resta Force India-Mercedes + 1 lap
13. Sutil Force India-Mercedes + 1 lap
14. Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari + 1 lap
15. Maldonado Williams-Cosworth + 1 lap
16. Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari + 2 laps
17. Barrichello Williams-Cosworth + 2 laps
18. Trulli Lotus-Renault + 2 laps
19. Glock Virgin-Cosworth + 3 laps
20. D'Ambrosio Virgin-Cosworth + 3 laps
21. Karthikeyan HRT-Cosworth + 4 laps
Not classified/retirements:
Massa Ferrari 60
Kovalainen Lotus-Renault 49
Liuzzi HRT-Cosworth 29
