Felipe Massa dominated the 65-lap Spanish Grand Prix to take a comfortable Ferrari victory from Lewis Hamilton who takes over the championship lead with his fourth straight podium position. Fernando Alonso finished third in what was another disappointing day for the defending world champion.
The race, as is so often the case this year, was effectively decided on the run down to the first turn at the start of the race. Leading away from Pole Position, Massa moved to the right of the circuit to take the inside line through the first turn. Unperturbed, Alonso attempted a brave manoeuvre around the outside actually squeezing Massa and the two rivals made light contact.
Massa was able to continue unabated as Alonso went for a wild ride though the gravel trap before rejoining the circuit. For Alonso, his hopes of repeating his win of last year were over there and then as rivals Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen raced through into second and third position.
Hamilton never had the pace to challenge Massa for the lead and the Brazilian duly took his second win of the season by seven seconds from Hamilton despite a small fuel fire during his first pit stop. Hamilton pushed hard all race long and comfortable held off Alonso who strangely opted for the harder tyre in his middle stint and trailed home third.
Kimi Raikkonen started the race as joint championship leader but a rare electrical problem saw him cruising back to the pits early in the race. For Raikkonen, the first retirement of the season drops him back to fourth in the championship standings.
Robert Kubica had a solid run from fifth position on the grid to finish fourth in his BMW Sauber. Team-mate Nick Heidfeld shadowed Kubica early on but an error in his first pit stop saw him leave the pit before his front right wheel was firmly attached. That rare error from BMW was academic as Heidfeld would retire from the race with a gearbox failure late in the race anyway.
David Coulthard survived a tense few final laps as his Red Bull Renault started to suffer from a gearbox problem. After another good run, Coulthard was able to hold off Nico Rosberg and take his first points of the season with a fine fifth position.
Williams Toyota will be happy with Rosberg’s strong performance and run to sixth position but once again Alex Wurz was an early casualty as he ran into the back of Ralf Schumacher on the opening lap.
Heikki Kovalainen had his strongest race to date on his way to seventh position. There were none of the mistakes seen in previous Grand Prix and despite an extra pit stop due to a fuel rig problem, claims his second points of the season. Team-mate Giancarlo Fisichella lost ground on the first lap and also had to make a third stop and therefore finished a disappointing ninth.
The final point went to Takuma Sato who drove a strong race to secure Super Aguri Honda their first championship point. Anthony Davidson finished 11th in the second Super Aguri Honda.
Rubens Barrichello did what he could with his Honda to finish in tenths position and survived a little contact with team-mate Jenson Button as they battled for position after the pit stop. Button would pit for a new front wing and finished 12th in a race of high attrition. Adrian Sutil was classified in 13th position in his Spyker ahead of team-mate Christijan Albers who served a drive through penalty after failing to acknowledge the blue flags.
There were a lot of retirements this afternoon with Ralf Schumacher calling it a day with suspension damage as a legacy of his lap one contact. Tonio Liuzzi retired his Toro Rosso Ferrari with a mechanical problem while team-mate Scott Speed suffered a high speed tyre failure which ended his day.
Jarno Trulli had hoped for a strong race but a fuel pump issue saw him stall his Toyota on the grid and was forced to give up his sixth position and start from the pit lane. The fuel pump was later cause more problems for the Italian and he was forced to retire. Mark Webber’s frustrating weekend continued as he retired his Red Bull Renault early in the race with a mechanical problem.
Hamilton now leads the championship by two points from McLaren Mercedes team-mate Alonso with Massa just one point behind in third and Raikkonen dropping to fourth.