2015 SPANISH GP: NICO ROSBERG GOT SCENT OF VICTORY - FORMULA 1

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Monday, May 11, 2015

2015 SPANISH GP: NICO ROSBERG GOT SCENT OF VICTORY

Nico Rosberg took a controlled and comfortable first win of the season at the Spanish Grand Prix as Lewis Hamilton recovered from a bad start to overhaul Sebastian Vettel with a three-stop strategy. After a superb start which saw him safely through the first corner in the lead Rosberg was never troubled during the race and worked his way through two routine stops to reignite his championship challenge with a ninth career win.

It was a less smooth race for Hamilton. The Briton made a poor getaway from the dirty side of the track and was passed by Vettel on the run to turn one. He hung on to the Ferrari in the first stint but a slow first stop widened the gap to the German. A second similarly slow stop hurt him again but he pushed hard to claw back time over Vettel and a regulation third stop saw him emerge ahead of Vettel and on fresher, medium tyres. Hamilton closed to within nine seconds of Rosberg in the closing stages but, controlling the pace, Rosberg was always comfortable as he headed towards the flag and 25 points that put him 20 points adrift of Hamilton after five races.

"It's a fantastic weekend," said Rosberg afterwards. "Everything worked out on Saturday and Sunday. It all came together. I’m very happy. At one point I thought maybe, who knows, maybe Sebastian can keep Lewis behind, which on the one side isn’t good for the team, but in terms of my points, it’s always a compromise, for my points that would have been better. Seven points is better than nothing and a fantastic team result to be first and second, especially after the two and a half week break. Everybody brought upgrades here but still we’re dominating in such a way and that’s fantastic to see and more than at the last race.

Hamilton, meanwhile, said his race had been a successful case of “damage limitation”: “I had quite a poor start. Been a long time since I had such a poor start. I tried my best to recover and it was then just trying to fight. Unfortunately this track isn’t very good for overtaking. It’s the worst. It’s impossible to follow. I did enough in the first stint. I had a very long pit stop and then had to do it all again but at the end on t a three stop had enough to get by. Grateful to get points for team but it was damage limitation.”

Sebastian Vettel: "All in all, I think third is the best we could do for the pace we had. I don’t think there’s anything wrong, it think it was just something coming together and maybe this is not the best week end for us in terms of competitiveness, but I believe it’s probably more down to conditions rather then something being wrong with the car. For some reasons we didn’t find the same rhythm of the last two events, but I’m sure that in a couple of races we’ll come back stronger. In terms of strategy, we went for two stops because we thought it would have been the best choice for the race: we have to be fair and accept the fact that Mercedes was the best team today. I think we’re going in the right direction. We know that there is a gap, but we’re fighting very hard to close it. Unfortunately we didn’t make a big step this race, but I’m pretty confident we’ll make it soon”.
PosDriverTeamGap
1Nico RosbergMercedes AMG  1h41:12.555
2Lewis HamiltonMercedes AMG    +     17.551
3Sebastian VettelFerrari    +     45.342
4Valtteri BottasWilliams    +     59.217
5Kimi RaikkonenFerrari    +  1:00.002
6Felipe MassaWilliams    +  1:21.314
7Daniel RicciardoRed Bull    +       1 Lap
8Romain GrosjeanLotus    +       1 Lap
9Carlos SainzToro Rosso    +       1 Lap
10Daniil KvyatRed Bull    +        1 Lap
11Max VerstappenToro Rosso    +        1 Lap
12Felipe NasrSauber    +        1 Lap
13Sergio PerezForce India    +        1 Lap
14Marcus EricssonSauber    +        1 Lap
15Nico HulkenbergForce India    +        1 Lap
16Jenson ButtonMcLaren    +        1 Lap
17Will StevensMarussia    +       3 Laps
18Roberto MerhiMarussia    +       4 Laps
-Pastor MaldonadoLotusRetirement
-Fernando AlonsoMcLaren/Brakes

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