Webber wins in Barcelona: Spanish GP 2010 Review

Webber Wins

Mark Webber has won the Spanish GP, being the first driver to win from pole position this year. He was joined on the podium by Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel.

The Spanish GP was the first completely dry weekend since the opening race of the year in Bahrain, and that is not where the similarities ended as the race, for the most part was rather processional. At the start of the race, the order did not change at the front of the field. After Red Bull had secured the front row in qualifying by a massive 8 tenths of a second, many thought that Lewis Hamilton or Fernando Alonso's best chance would be to get past them at the start, which they didn't.

There were some problems further down the field as Pedro de la Rosa had to pit due to a puncture after a collision, and Bruno Senna ended up travelling across the gravel and ending up in the tyre wall. Heikki Kovalainen didn't even start the race due to a gearbox problem on the grid - he was wheeled off on a trolley to the garage before the drivers set off on their parade lap. Nico Rosberg also suffered at the start as he went backwards and lost quite a few places. His luck didn't improve when he later pitted for fresh tyres - he went to leave the box, but he had a problem with a nut on his right front and his brakes caught fire, and he was brought back to the box, which made his pitstop a lot longer than it should've been.

Jenson Button was another person who lost out in the pitstops as he had a problem with the wheelnut on one of his tyres and ended up coming out behind Michael Schumacher, where he stayed for the rest of the race after trying and failing several times to overtake the seven times world champion.

There was a little excitement when Hamilton pitted as he came out just ahead of Sebastian Vettel, but it nearly ended badly as a Virgin Racing car got in the way while trying to get out of the way and planted itself on the apex of the corner. Luckily a collision was avoided and Vettel decided to take avoiding action by going over the corner. De la Rosa suffered another DNF and when interviewed said there was "not a lot to say" and that someone hit him in turn one and the "car was undriveable".

Karun Chandhok also had an eventful race as when he was allowing Schumacher and Button through, Felipe Massa who was trying to follow through drove into the back of him. Massa knocked his front wing slightly out of shape but it didn't hurt his laps times so he was able to continue. His second drama came when he was letting another driver, this time Jaime Alguersuari, through and Alguersuari cut back in front of him, taking Chandhok's front wing right off. Alguersuari was given a drive through penalty and Chandhok pitted for a new nose, although unfortunately retired a lap later. He later said it was "quite difficult to get out of the way" and that Alguersuari's move was "uncalled for".

Vettel started to have problems towards the end of the race as he pitted on lap 55. He had built up quite a gap back to Schumacher so when he emerged from the pits he was still in 4th place. It soon became apparent he had brake problems and a series of messages from his race engineer over the radio showed how worried about it the team were. First of all he was told his brakes were "about to go". He was then told "you need to slow down... this is critical". Vettel slowed down slightly although this was obviously not enough for the team as his race engineer soon told him "you need to slow down.. this is too quick we don't need this."

What was probably the biggest drama of the race came a lap before the end when the camera jumped to a car in the gravel, and the familiar yellow helmet showed it was Hamilton. A replay showed that his car had suffered a puncture/deflation which sent him travelling into the gravel. His body language when he got out of the s that he was clearly very disappointed; however, after the race he was surprisingly upbeat. When interviewed he said "it was quite a good race" and that he had had "really good fun out there". About his incident he said "these things happen". Button wasn't quite so upbeat and about Schumacher he said "he didn't really give me a lot of room.. you think with his experience he would know better". Oooer.

Webber finally took the chequered flag after 66 laps, leading home local hero Alonso and surprisingly Vettel, who'd spent the last ten laps cruising into corners and slowing down considerably. The other points scorers were Schumacher, Button, Massa, Sutil, Kubica, Barrichello and Alguersuari (surprisingly after his drama and drive through penalty). Those who did not finish the race were Buemi, Chandhok, de la Rosa, Senna and Kovalainen (who didn't even start).

The teams and drivers now have a quick turnaround as they head to Monaco for next weekend, with Free Practice being on Thursday instead of the usual Friday. The championship is getting tight at the top, so the next few races promise to be very exciting!

Posted by Hannah Hough - Follow her on twitter @hannahhou.

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• Arh cool so you probably are more familiar with David Croft then John Legard!!! Probably best...
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