Fernando Alonso’s second Spanish Grand Prix victory flew in the face of precedent. No-one before had won at the Circuit de Catalunya from the third row of the rid but the Spaniard did not let that stand in his way, cruising around in the final laps to finish nine seconds ahead of Kimi Räikkönen’s Lotus, who in turn was a comfortable margin ahead of Felipe Massa in the second Ferrari.

Behind the podium party, Sebastian Vettel failed to impress, though finishing fourth was sufficient to maintain his lead in the Drivers’ Championship. Behind him came team-mate Mark Webber to ensure Red Bull stay top of the Constructor’s Championship table also.

From pole position Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg fell to sixth at the flag – better rewarded than team-mate Lewis Hamilton, who dropped from second to 12^th but displaying Mercedes’ expected lack of long-run pace. He finished ahead of Paul di Resta for Force India, seventh and the two McLarens of Jenson Button and Sergio Pérez were eighth and ninth respectively. Daniel Ricciardo took the final point for Toro Rosso, narrowly prevailing over Sauber’s Esteban Gutiérrez on the final lap.

Tyre choice did not seem as critical as had been the case in Bahrain but nevertheless this was a race where strategy played its part. The majority of the points-scorers opted for a four-stop race but Räikkönen, Rosberg and Button eked out their rubber and did only three. Once those choices became clear the question to be answered in the latter half of the race was whether Räikkönen’s frugality or Alonso’s pace would win out.

Alonso had put himself in a strong position, passing Räikkönen and Hamilton at the start to move up to third behind the equally fast-starting Vettel and Rosberg. It was, said the Ferrari man speaking after the race in the FIA press conference, essential to his chance of winning.

“I think we knew that to win the race we needed to pass people at the start. I saw Kimi and Lewis running a little bit wide in turn one so I changed trajectory and I had a clean exit in turn two. I passed Kimi and I said ‘why not also Hamilton?’ I had a little bit of KERS that I saved from the start for turn three, so I used that to pass Hamilton and I think that was a lot in the race – [but] also when exiting the first pit stop.”

Alonso got ahead of Vettel in that first pit window and forced his way past Rosberg shortly afterwards as the Mercedes faded from contention. Räikkönen, however, did not quite manage to do the same and got stuck behind a manifestly slower Vettel for several laps. The Finn, though, did not believe those laps were a significant factor in the race’s outcome.

“Obviously I have to overtake and I took maybe a few laps more than I expected but I got past him and I really could pull away,” said Räikkönen. “In the end I really don’t think those were the decisions that were the deciding story of the race.

“I think we deserved to be second and not really winning today. It’s OK for the team, the guys did a good job and we go for the next race to try to do better and get the best out of it.”

That Ferrari had genuine pace today was underlined by the form of Massa. Having qualified sixth and been demoted to ninth for blocking, the Brazilian recovered his position superbly to take his first podium of the season.

“Our car was really superb for this track,” said Massa. “The degradation on the tyres was not [as minimal as] Lotus but I think we did the best as we’re supposed to do and we showed a good performance.”

Having won in Bahrain, the previous round of the championship, more might have been expected from Red Bull, especially given Vettel’s good start which took him into second behind Rosberg. The World Champion, however, refused to be disappointed with finishing off the podium, claiming he ran a good race. Vettel also suggested that Red Bull aren’t completely comfortable with the behaviour of the tyres.

“I think we can be happy with fourth today,” he said. “The first three cars were a little bit too fast for us and regarding looking after the tyres, they did a better job. We need to catch up; we’re not going the pace of the car, we’re going the pace of the tyres and obviously we do something to make the tyres wear more.  We got some good points today, although of course we wanted more.”

For Alonso, though, there were no such problems. His second Spanish Grand Prix victory and a third on Spanish soil took ahead of Nigel Mansell in the all-time list of F1 winners with 32 wins. Asked if he had ambitions to catch Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost and Michael Schumacher ahead, Alonso suggested he had other priorities:

“I’d just be happy if I finish second in all the races and I win more championships.”

He moves up to third place in this year’s battle.

2013 FIA Formula One Spanish Grand Prix result

1 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1:39:16.596 25pts
2 Kimi Räikkönen Lotus +9.3s 18pts
3 Felipe Massa Ferrari +26.0s 15pts
4 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull Racing +38.2s 12pts
5 Mark Webber Red Bull Racing +47.9s 10pts
6 Nico Rosberg Mercedes +68.0s 8pts
7 Paul di Resta Force India +68.9s 6pts
8 Jenson Button McLaren +79.5s 4pts
9 Sergio Pérez McLaren +81.7s 2pts
10 Daniel Ricciardo Toro Rosso +1 Lap 1pts
11 Esteban Gutiérrez Sauber +1 Lap
12 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes +1 Lap
13 Adrian Sutil Force India +1 Lap
14 Pastor Maldonado Williams +1 Lap
15 Nico Hülkenberg Sauber +1 Lap
16 Valtteri Bottas Williams +1 Lap
17 Charles Pic Caterham +1 Lap
18 Jules Bianchi Marussia +2 Laps
19 Max Chilton Marussia +2 Laps
Ret Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso Collision damage
Ret Giedo van der Garde Caterham +45 Laps
Ret Romain Grosjean Lotus Suspension

This was Mercedes’ third pole in succession and two-in-a-row for Rosberg as once again the team from Brackley demonstrated they are without peer over one lap. Sebastian Vettel, third for Red Bull Racing and Lotus’ Kimi Räikkönen, fourth, will take comfort from the fact that Mercedes have consistently faded over longer stints this season, proving uncompetitive in the long runs.

No-one has ever won a grand prix from off the first two rows at the Circuit de Catalunya but the partisan crowd, a sea of Fernando Alonso-supporting red will hope to see that statistic overturned, with the home favourite starting from fifth. He lines up on row three alongside the Lotus of Romain Grosjean. Alonso’s team-mate Felipe Massa qualified sixth but will take a three-place drop on the grid for impeding Red Bull’s Mark Webber. Webber himself will start seventh, alongside McLaren’s Sergio Pérez. Massa slots into ninth with Force India’s Paul di Resta tenth.

Rosberg dominated Q3. He went out on track as soon as the pitlane opened and was the second man across the line, taking P1 and eclipsing the early benchmark set by the much-fancied Räikkönen. 

Thereafter, Rosberg was never bested. Vettel opted to do only one run in Q3 and for a time looked like he might snatch a first pole at the Circuit de Catalunya, setting times faster than Rosberg in sectors one and two before fading toward the end of the lap and slotting into P2. That would soon become P3 as Hamilton made it an all-Mercedes front row. Rosberg, meanwhile, improved his time by a tenth, setting 1:20.718 as the new standard but the other pole contenders, Massa, Alonso and Webber could not get close to the mark.

Mercedes’ clear pleasure at a front-row lockout was tempered by a slight air of unreality: while supreme over one lap, the evidence of the last two races suggests they will struggle to live with the cars behind over a race distance – a notion endorsed by Rosberg in the FIA press conference following the session.

“I’m not going to sit here and say I’m very confident that I can go for the win tomorrow,” said the German driver. “No, the target needs to be a little bit less than that I think – maybe a podium.”

He did, however, suggest that Mercedes would not struggle to the extent they had in Bahrain, where conditions exaggerated minor failings.

Despite this, Vettel will no doubt feel confident after his third place, which is strengthened by his decision to run the entire qualifying session on medium tyres, leaving him a full compliment of the preferred hard compound tyres for the race.

“We had a pretty smooth qualifying session,” said the world champion. “Again, a little bit of a different approach than the majority of people – using option tyres only. Whether that helps us tomorrow we’ll have to wait and see. I’m happy with today’s result.”

Räikkönen said fourth was about the best he could have done in qualifying and expressed a belief that his car could move up in the race, a view echoed by Alonso. “I think this is the maximum of what we have at the moment in our hands,” said the Spaniard. “We know that the race pace is maybe a little bit better for us, so we need to wait for our opportunities tomorrow. We need to have a clean start, a good first lap, and then a good strategy, because tyre degradation will again be very high. I feel confident. The car felt good yesterday, I felt competitive. Historically Sunday has been our best day of the weekend, so no reason not to be on the podium tomorrow.”

Behind the Q3 runners it is Toro Rosso who seem to have fared best in the upgrade battle. Having looked strong throughout practice, the team from Faenza qualified 11^th and 12^th, with Daniel Ricciardo in front of Jean-Eric Vergne.

A disappointed Adrian Sutil was 13^th for Force India, having struggled to find clean air in the last minutes of Q2. He is joined on row seven by Jenson Button, the 2009 Spanish Grand Prix winner struggling to get the tyres of his McLaren working to his liking.

Nico Hülkenberg was 15^th for Sauber, and would have been alongside team-mate Esteban Gutiérrez but the Mexican picked up a three-place penalty for impeding Räikkönen. That drops him behind the Williams, both of whom failed to get out of Q1 – though Valtteri Bottas has the consolation of out-pacing last year’s winner Pastor Maldonado – and Giedo van der Garde, who had an excellent day for Caterham. Jules Bianchi will line up 20^th for Marussia, ahead of team-mate Chilton, with Charles Pic last after struggling to find balance in the upgraded Caterham.

2013 Spanish Grand Prix – qualifying times

1 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:20.718
2 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:20.972
3 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull Racing 1:21.054
4 Kimi Räikkönen Lotus 1:21.177
5 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1:21.218
6 Felipe Massa Ferrari 1:21.219 (faces 3 place penalty)
7 Romain Grosjean Lotus 1:21.308
8 Mark Webber Red Bull Racing 1:21.570
9 Sergio Pérez McLaren 1:22.069
10 Paul di Resta Force India 1:22.233
11 Daniel Ricciardo Toro Rosso 1:22.127
12 Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso 1:22.166
13 Adrian Sutil Force India 1:22.346
14 Jenson Button McLaren 1:22.355
15 Nico Hülkenberg Sauber 1:22.389
16 Esteban Gutiérrez Sauber 1:22.793 (faces 3 place penalty)
17 Valtteri Bottas Williams 1:23.260
18 Pastor Maldonado Williams 1:23.318
19 Giedo van der Garde Caterham 1:24.661
20 Jules Bianchi Marussia 1:24.713  
21 Max Chilton Marussia 1:24.996
22 Charles Pic Caterham 1:25.070

Ferrari’s Felipe Massa topped the final practice timesheet ahead of qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix with a time of 1:21.901 at the Circuit de Catalunya.

The Brazilian just edged Kimi Raikkonen, the Lotus driver ending the one-hour session just six thousandths of a second behind the Ferrari man. Third place went to Red Bull Racing’s Mark Webber, who finished the final practice session 0.143 adrift of Massa’s benchmark.

Fourth place was taken by Lotus’ Romain Grosjean, while Sebastian Vettel finished with the morning’s fifth-fastest time, a lap of 1:22.229, just over three tenths adrift of P1.

A straightforward session, run in dry conditions, saw the drivers spend the first half hours concentrating on the hard compound tyre and it was Fernando Alonso who held sway on the harder of the two Pirelli compounds on offer. The Spaniard’s lap of 1:23.006, set after 25 minutes, was good enough to keep control of proceedings until the switch to mediums began with 25 minutes remaining.

Even then Alonso stayed at the top, his opening time on mediums bettering his hard tyre standard by seven tenths. Mercedes Nico Rosberg, by far the busiest man on track with 26 laps, briefly climbed to P2 with his first run on the medium compound but he quickly dropped down the order as the rest of the field strapped on the quicker tyre as the session wound down. The German finished in 11^th place.

After his early dominance Alonso settled for sixth place in the end. The local hero was then followed by the Force Indias of Paul Di Resta and Adrian Sutil. Lewis Hamilton was ninth and the top 10 was rounded out by Toro Rosso’s Jean-Eric Vergne.

2013 Spanish Grand Prix – Free Practice 3 Times

1 Felipe Massa Ferrari 1:21.901
2 Kimi Räikkönen Lotus 1:21.907 +0.006
3 Mark Webber Red Bull Racing 1:22.044 +0.143          
4 Romain Grosjean Lotus 1:22.069 +0.168          
5 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull Racing 1:22.229 +0.328
6 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1:22.254 +0.353
7 Paul di Resta Force India 1:22.574 +0.673
8 Adrian Sutil Force India 1:22.729 +0.828
9 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:22.740 +0.839
10 Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso 1:22.759 +0.858
11 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:22.839 +0.938
12 Jenson Button McLaren 1:23.151 +1.250
13 Esteban Gutiérrez Sauber 1:23.371 +1.470
14 Sergio Pérez McLaren 1:23.373 +1.472
15 Pastor Maldonado Williams 1:23.385 +1.484
16 Nico Hülkenberg Sauber 1:23.388 +1.487     
17 Valtteri Bottas Williams 1:23.660 +1.759
18 Daniel Ricciardo Toro Rosso 1:23.767 +1.866
19 Charles Pic Caterham 1:24.775 +2.874
20 Jules Bianchi Marussia 1:24.793 +2.892
21 Max Chilton Marussia 1:25.135 +3.234
22 Giedo van der Garde Caterham 1:25.250 +3.349

After a quiet morning, Red Bull Racing and Sebastian Vettel rose to the top in the afternoon at the Circuit de Catalunya. With the track properly dry and temperatures rising, Vettel wasted no time in exiting the pitlane when the light turned green. He was followed by most of the field, with 19 cars on track within the first five minutes. He started on the experimental hard tyre, others followed with a mix of that and the standard version. Lap times were soon much quicker than those set in the morning, with Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg leading the way with a 1:23.801 at the 15 minute mark. Team-mate Lewis Hamilton faired less well, spinning his car onto the kerbs at Turn 11.

Medium tyres came out early than usual with Webber taking a second out of Rosberg’s time on his first run shortly after the half-hour point. Webber was shortly toppled though, as Vettel beat him by hundredths with 1:22.808 just before the half-way point, and Fernando Alonso slipped his Ferrari in between the Red Bull pair.

With many drivers settling into long runs in the second half of the session, the order at the top stayed largely static to the flag. Kimi Räikkönen was fourth for Lotus ahead of Felipe Massa in the second Ferrari. Then came Hamilton and Rosberg. They were followed by Adrian Sutil for Force India eighth, Jean-Eric Vergne’s Toro Rosso ninth and Paul di Resta in the second Force India tenth. Di Resta retired his car with 20 minutes of the session remaining, parking by the pitlane exit after a tyre failure damaged his bodywork.

No such troubles for Vettel though, the World Champion ran to the flag. Speaking afterwards he professed himself happy with the afternoon but also suggested the developments to his car this week are not as significant as has been made out. “We have some new parts here but the days of big, big upgrades don’t really happen now with the regulations how they are,” he said. “This afternoon was fairly conclusive, but this morning wasn’t really much good with the weather.”
 

2013 Spanish Grand Prix – Free Practice 2 Times

1 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull Racing 1:22.808                        
2 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1:22.825 +0.017
3 Mark Webber Red Bull Racing 1:22.891 +0.083              
4 Kimi Räikkönen Lotus 1:23.030 +0.222            
5 Felipe Massa Ferrari 1:23.110 +0.302              
6 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:23.140 +0.332    
7 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:23.398 +0.590        
8 Adrian Sutil Force India 1:23.840 +1.032          
9 Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso 1:24.058 +1.250                  
10 Paul di Resta Force India 1:24.104 +1.296      
11 Daniel Ricciardo Toro Rosso 1:24.175 +1.367
12 Jenson Button McLaren 1:24.306 +1.498        
13 Sergio Pérez McLaren 1:24.854 +2.046            
14 Valtteri Bottas Williams 1:24.888 +2.080        
15 Nico Hülkenberg Sauber 1:25.167 +2.359        
16 Pastor Maldonado Williams 1:25.321 +2.513
17 Esteban Gutiérrez Sauber 1:25.441 +2.633    
18 Romain Grosjean Lotus 1:25.851 +3.043          
19 Giedo van der Garde Caterham 1:25.963 +3.155            
20 Jules Bianchi Marussia 1:26.078 +3.270          
21 Charles Pic Caterham 1:26.930 +4.122              
22 Max Chilton Marussia 1:26.970 +4.162