Pastor Maldonado and Williams F1 Team put Barcelona on fire

Venezuelan Williams driver Pastor Maldonado gave Sir Frank Williams the best birthday present possible by scoring a maiden victory in Barcelona on Sunday. It was a tremendous day for Maldonado, who thoroughly deserved this long awaited Formula 1 win. Moreover, it was a terrific gesture on the podium, when Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen lifted him on to their shoulders to join him celebrating a fantastic triumph.

The speed of the Venezuelan driver in his Williams FW34 came out of nowhere on Saturday to score pole-position after Lewis Hamilton was denied P1 after the stewards found, that his car did not have sufficient fuel onboard to comply with the rules on its return to Parc Ferme.

It should be mentioned here that the last pole position scored by Williams was back in Brazil 2010, when Nico Hulkenberg bet Sebastian Vettel by more than a second in Q3.

In this race, Pastor Maldonado became the fifth different winner in the spectacular 2012 season, scoring Williams first victory after the last one achieved by Juan Pablo Montoya back in Interlagos 2004.

As a matter of fact, it was not a light to flag victory, as the Venezuelan driver was eagerly fending off a hungry Fernando Alonso starting from P2 who snatched the lead for the Scuderia Ferrari and remained there for the first 27 laps. For the spectators following the race of the Spaniard in front of his home crowd on TV and the audience it seemed a foregone conclusion.

But it was only a matter of time. After the second round of pit stops, Venezuelan Williams driver Pastor Maldonado moved ahead, and by then it appeared that Fernando Alonso’s challenge seemed broken. After the third round of stops, however, the Spaniard got his second shot at the Williams driver and the gap shrank slowly but steadily. By the 48th lap the race was back on track, with Spanish Scuderia driver Fernando Alonso never being able to threat the race leader like that before.

On the 57th of the 66 laps however, he had a little lock down the inside in Turn One, and similarly like the move of Kimi Raikkonen in his Lotus on Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel in Bahrain, he was never able to have a second shot. Maldonado held his nerves of steel and as the Ferrari’s tires started to deteriorate, the Williams driver pulled away to win by a comfortable 3.1s.

Behind the leading duo, Kimi Raikkonen finally got going in the third stint and slashed an 18-second gap to Fernando Alonso to just over half a second by the finishing line. After the race, the Spaniard said something went wrong with his car as it began to lose grip, while the Finn complained that his car - one of the pre-race favorite ones - just wasn’t fast enough when it mattered the most.

It was still a formidable day for Lotus as Romain Grosjean arrived in fourth place. Behind him, Kamui Kobayashi survived a brush when overtaking Vodafone McLaren Mercedes of Jenson Button to take an excellent fifth for Sauber, who lost Sergio Perez in the early phases of the race after the Mexican collided with Grosjean in the first corner and had to make a pit stop at the end of Lap One. Later after a mechanic fell over the right-rear wheel during a stop, Perez lasted in the race only as long as it took him to notice that the wheel in question was not properly secured.

Double World champion and German Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel fought with all possible means for sixth, his race including a nose change as he fought to get forward in the race order. On a fresher set of tires he caught and passed the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes' and Nico Rosberg’s Mercedes in the closing laps to snatch a useful eight points, which was not bad at all, bearing in mind that he received a drive-through penalty for ignoring yellow flags.

Nico Rosberg just held on to seventh by 0.2s as McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton launched a late attack. The Briton drove a brilliant fighting two-stop race from the back of the grid, jumping to 19th place by the end of the first lap and then steadily picking people off - including both Toro Rossos on Lap 39 .He was also very lucky on the first lap not to hit a wayward Perez as the Mexican veered back on to the track right in front of him in Turn Two. But still there was a pit-stop problem as he clipped a used tire leaving the pit after his first stop. Luckily there was no serious damage.

His Vodafone McLaren Mercedes team mate Jenson Button finished ninth, struggling all day for grip and condemning that brush when Kamui Kobayashi caught him by surprise. Neither Vodafone McLaren Mercedes driver had the grip left to fend off emerging German Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel by the end.

Nico Hulkenberg took the final point for Force India after a super battle which included keeping a delayed Mark Webber behind despite some head-turning side-by-side moments. The Australian, like his Red Bull team mate, had to have the face-lifted nose changed during his first round of pit stops.

Jean-Eric Vergne was close behind him at the end after a great tussle with Toro Rosso team mate Daniel Ricciardo, while Force India’s Paul di Resta was an unhappy 14th after a big fight with all of the aforementioned four drivers, and a lot of defensive driving at the end to keep Felipe Massa’s Ferrari behind him. The Brazilian was the second driver to get a drive-through penalty for a yellow flag infringement.

This time Heikki Kovalainen comprehensively beat Caterham team mate Vitaly Petrov, and Timo Glock was Marussia’s only car to finish after first-lap spinner Charles Pic was further delayed by a drive-through penalty for ignoring blue flags and then retired with mechanical problems.

Pedro de la Rosa was the final finisher for HRT, after team mate Narain Karthikeyan was a victim of mechanical problems, and besides Pic and Perez the retirements included also Bruno Senna and Michael Schumacher. The former 7-times Formula 1 World champion missed the braking point and struck into the back of the Brazilian in Turn One on the 12th lap. Schumacher later criticized Senna heavily, but Senna said his tires were degrading and that knowing the German was on newer ones, he was trying to move left and out of his way when the misunderstanding occurred. Michael Schumacher was later handed a five-place grid penalty for the next round in Monaco by the race stewards for causing the collision.

The results of the Formula 1 race held in Spain moves Fernando Alonso to a joint first place in the drivers' championship with Sebastian Vettel, both with 61 points, but with the German Red Bull driver staying ahead on count back. Lewis Hamilton’s great damage limitation run keeps him in the game with 53 with Kimi Raikkonen on 49, Mark Webber 48, Jenson Button 45, Nico Rosberg 41, Romain Grosjean 35, Pastor Maldonado 29 and Sergio Perez 22.

In the constructors’ stakes Red Bull have 109 points to Vodafone McLaren Mercedes 98, Lotus’s 84, Scuderia Ferrari’s 63, Mercedes and Williams on 43 each and Sauber on 41.


AE
Barcelone - Dubai - Cairo
13.05.2012