WEBBER'S TURN TO WIN
Well the teams did make it back home from Shanghai and got to work on a variety of updates. Now the season really got started with the European part of the season getting underway. Of course the problem with the first race of that part of the season is that everyone knows the Circuit to Catalunya too well! So the Spanish Grand Prix was seen as a probable testing session for a lot of the new parts with not a lot of overtaking as per usual. Nah that's being harsh, Spain has seen its share of great racing. Thing is, qualifying is still seen as important and it's there that the Red Bull drivers have a definite edge. So, let's see what happened this time round.
First up, qualifying. Well the Brits had no issues in Q1 but guess what? The new teams got KOd again - with Barrichello also getting mugged. Q2 proved to be another smooth ride for my guys but someone had to get booted and that someone included Sutil, who'd been getting a fair bit of attention up to this point. Well Jenson was the first guy to set a time in Q3 but then was beaten by Lewis. Neither man had an answer to Webber though with only Vettel able to beat his initial time but Webber came back from that to claim his second pole of the season. Vettel grabbed P2 for the second all-Red Bull front row on the trot. Lewis grabbed P3 for his best grid slot of the season so far. Further down, Jenson started P5.
Well the start of the race turned out to be relatively uneventful with Lewis sticking in 3rd place though unlikely to trouble the Red Bulls and he was left till wait till they all came into the pits - and proceded to burn up Vettel to take 2nd. Unfortunately though the lead allways looked out of reach and 2nd place would have done very nicely. No punctures would also have done very nicely though. Slight problem, Lewis still wound up steaming into the gravel trap in the closing laps. Technically he finished 14th but those kind of classifications always are a joke. Annoying for such a classy driver who is already having to play catchup in the title race.
Jenson, like Lewis didn't have an eventful start and seemed fairly safe in 5th for a while. His pit stop didn't go so well and he wound up getting done by Schumacher. Slight problem, this is a Schumacher that had started to return to form over the Grand Prix weekend and though he didn't have the speed to pull away from the Brit, he could certainly keep him back. Jenson was just never in a position to get past him which means that this won't go down as one of his better races. Lewis's crash allowed him to move back up to 5th and claim two more championship points but still, not a race that'll stay in his memory banks for long surely.
Webber, like seemingly everyone else, held position at the start and that meant that he led and then pulled away a fair bit. After that to be honest no one looked like challenging him. Vettel of course was the initial early challenger but he of course fell victim to Lewis. The '08 world champion might have been expected to give Webber a battle but wasn't able to before he went speeding off into the gravel. After that, WEbber was able to just cruise to his first win of the season. Alonso was the guy that finished 2nd but no where near him. Vettel grabbed 3rd after running into trouble late on. Schumacher finished 4th for his best result since Brazil '06.
Despite all that, Jenson still leading the championship. He's now on 70 points though his lead has been cut to three points. Further down, Lewis has dropped to 6th place with 49 points(including four top six finishes which gives him the edge).
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