Mark Webber converted his pole position into victory in the Spanish Grand Prix on Sunday. With this win, the Red Bull driver continued a decade long tradition where pole-sitters at Barcelona seem to win no matter what. In his home race, Fernando Alonso took second for Ferrari while Webber’s team mate Sebastien Vettel had to nurse his limping car into third place (full results).  

Despite Red Bull not running away with a huge gap at the start, it wasn’t really as close a race as F1 enthusiasts across the world would have wanted. Webber did win by more than 24 seconds from Alonso and nearly 53 seconds from Vettel, while fourth placed Michael Schumacher came home a full minute behind. But all of this wouldn’t have been possible had Webber not closed the door on his team mate and Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren at the first corner. Right at the start, he kept awake unlike in Malaysia to deny the fast starting Vettel any advantage. From there on, it was just about keeping out of trouble and that he did.

Vettel though didn’t have an easy race. He clashed with Lewis after the first round of pit stops and the British driver was able to gain a place over him. But he couldn’t secure the second place on the podium after crashing out on the penultimate lap with a seeming left front puncture. However McLaren stated that he had struck debris and this debate will rage on till Monaco next week for Lewis is known to be hard on his tyres. Meanwhile Vettel came in third due to this incident, after he had earlier dropped down to fourth behind Alonso because he had to make another pit stop.

Red Bull made that call simply because Schumacher was holding up traffic in fifth place for much of the race. They wanted to take a look at his brakes which he used up quite quickly towards the end and despite his engineer asking him to slow down, didn’t really let up in his pace. Meanwhile for the first time in four races, Schumacher finished a complete weekend ahead of his team mate Nico Rosberg who could only finish 13th. Clearly the changes have worked for the seven time champion, in particular, the weight redistribution but a podium or a win is still out of the question as Mercedes GP seem to be more than a second off pace at the moment.

Schumacher though did a fantastic job of keeping a long line of drivers behind him for a majority of the race. After Jenson Button pitted on Lap 16 and came out behind the German, he tried again and again to get past. But it was a mix of brilliant defensive racing from the former world champion that kept the current champion at bay, and of course the loss of downforce when approaching the car in front. Schumacher was so off the pace of Alonso ahead of him that Felipe Massa, Adrian Sutil and Robert Kubica all caught up, forming a train for much of the race. Rubens Barrichello drove a good race to rescue the final point after a disastrous qualifying.

Talking Indian interests, Force India again had the one drive in the points and now, are consistently scoring championship points. But again the worrisome part is Tonio Liuzzi’s form. That is okay till the rest of the competing teams around them, Renault and Williams do not have both their drivers in points. In some ways, Force India’s updates didn’t really work for them and they will be looking to draw out more for them. Meanwhile Karun Chandhok retired from the race after 27 laps due to a suspension failure as Jaime Alguersuari smashed into him. Till then, he gave a good account of his race pace.

This means Button (70) still leads Alonso (67) in the driver’s championship standings with Vettel (60) in third. The big loser is Nico Rosberg who didn’t score any points. In the constructor’s battle, Red Bull (113) have closed the gap on McLaren (119) and Ferrari (116). But what would be worrying the teams more than points is the high amount of downforce Red Bull have found in their upgrades which is the secret to their awesome pace. Monaco GP next week, with its max downforce requirements, seems to be Red Bull’s playground at the moment.