F1 2012 - A Retrospective Part 6: Spain
Qualifying
Formula One arrived in Europe for the first time in the 2012 season and the warm Spanish weather must have been getting to people’s heads because the qualifying session turned up the heat on this year’s championship battle with its most surprising twist yet.
Lewis Hamilton once again proved his ability over a single lap and went quickest in the final round of qualifying. But he started the race at the very back of the grid! An insufficient amount of fuel was left in the car, which disqualified him from the entire session.
He was .5s quicker than second place, which to everyone’s shock and amazement was Pastor Maldonado in the Williams! A first pole position for the British constructor since the 2010 Brazilian Grand Prix. This was also the first pole position of the Venezuelan’s career.
Before the teams arrived in Spain, they did a four day test at the Mugello circuit — the very same one F1 raced at in 2020 — where a number of teams brought their biggest aerodynamic upgrades of the season so far.
It was unclear during Friday practice whether Ferrari’s upgrades really helped the car, but the qualifying pace of Fernando Alonso was much improved. He finished third fastest in Q3, but started his home race in second place. This was by far the best Saturday performance of the season from the Scuderia. However, Felipe Massa continued to struggle and was 16th.
The two Lotus drivers continued to show off the pace of their car, following their double podium last time out. They finished just two tenths off Maldonado .063s off each other.
Romain Grosjean got the better of his world champion teammate on Saturday once again, but Kimi Raikkonen had the measure of the Frenchman on Sundays in the opening four races. They locked out the second row.
Sergio Perez and Nico Rosberg were fifth and sixth. This was the highest qualifying position of Perez’s F1 career. However, he was helped by three drivers not setting a lap as well as Hamilton’s disqualification.
Sebastian Vettel, Michael Schumacher and Kamui Kobayashi opted to have the choice of a fresh set of tyres so decided to not set a timed lap in Q3.
Jenson Button and Mark Webber were caught out by a significant track evolution at the end of Q2 and thus finished 11th and 12th in the session. Bruno Senna was 17th in the other Williams, highlighting just how good a lap this was from Maldonado.
Pre-Race
For everything about the three drivers opting not to set a time, they all chose to start on the same tyre as the six who did. Was it really that detrimental to start the race on slightly worn tyres that it was worth giving up potentially six or seven positions at the front?
It was understandable for Kobayashi to make that choice because the Sauber was likely the fifth or sixth quickest of the six cars in the top nine. But for Vettel and Schumacher, two race winning cars, the decision was much stranger.
This became enough of a problem that eventually the rule was changed to how it is in the current seasons in the hybrid era. Nowadays drivers who make the final part of qualifying start the race on the set of tyres they used to get into Q3, as opposed to the set they used for the best timed lap in Q3 itself.
This change was supposedly made to prevent cars from having a strategic reason to not set a time, thus making qualifying a more entertaining product (all ten drivers setting laps is, in theory, more entertaining than only six or seven).
However, this just seems like poor strategic thinking, particularly on this track where it is historically more difficult to overtake so starting grid positions is a big factor in a successful race. If they had chosen to go with the Hard tyres instead of the Softs then it would have made more sense, even if that strategy didn’t work out.
It’ll be interesting to see how these cars do given this decision compared to the likes of Grosjean, Perez, Alonso and even Maldonado.
It was certainly a strange starting grid, regardless. Of the top five in the championship, only one of them sat in the top five places on the starting grid. And even then, Alonso was fifth in the championship heading into this race. Hamilton was obviously a big reason for this, and this race was the first one he started in last place ever in F1, but Webber and Button missed Q3 on merit.
Let’s see if it led to an exciting race, or if they struggled to make up the lost ground.
Race
Maldonado got off the line well and moved across to try to cover off the Ferrari, but Alonso was already side by side with the Williams after the first 100m and by the time they reached the first corner the Spaniard was ahead and into the lead of the race!
Further back, Raikkonen got by his teammate into Turn One, but Grosjean just about managed to hold onto fourth going around Turn Three.
But Perez had a puncture around Turn Three! It was not immediately clear what happened to the Sauber but he somehow kept his car out of the gravel.
Unfortunately, that was a massive disappointment for the Mexican. Last time out it was Daniel Ricciardo who had a miserable first lap after a best ever qualifying result, this time it was Perez who suffered the same fate.
As they entered Turn Four, Rosberg moved ahead of Grosjean for fourth. Schumacher also had an excellent start, he moved up as far as sixth place and was looking to pounce on the struggling Grosjean.
Meanwhile, Webber suffered a horrible opening lap. He was 14th as they came around the final corner for the first time, he was behind Massa who started five places further back on the grid.
The start made for some interesting contrasts at the front and back of the grid. Alonso was in the lead, but his teammate Massa was stuck in a train of cars in 11th. Maldonado was just over a second behind the leader, but Senna was in 18th after Hamilton breezed by him at Turn Seven on lap three.
Otherwise it was a largely uninteresting opening few laps. The Circuit de Catalunya has a bad reputation for being difficult to overtake in F1, and a so far ineffective DRS was proving that a worthwhile distinction in the opening run of laps.
Four seconds covered a DRS train of cars from Grosjean in fifth to Jean-Eric Vergne in 10th. This forced Webber into changing strategy, he was the first to come into the pit lane at the end of lap six. “He’d be stuck in the midfield otherwise,” explained Martin Brundle.
One lap later and Vettel followed suit, changing for a set of Hard compound tyres, just as Webber did. He was in seventh before coming in.
Over the course of the next few laps the rest of the pack came streaming in for their first stop. Kobayashi was next in to cover the undercut from Webber, which worked and Rosberg did the same to Vettel. However, Button was still stuck behind Vettel, unable to make an overcut work. They all came in for a set of Hard tyres.
Alonso arrived for his stop at the start of lap 11, with Grosjean right behind. Interestingly, the Frenchman opted for another set of Soft tyres, a difference in strategy at Lotus.
Schumacher also came in for his set of Soft tyres, which of the two compounds will prove the better in the next stint?
Maldonado and Raikkonen also came in for a set of Soft tyres on lap 12, Alonso suddenly was looking the outlier at the front of this race.
Grosjean and Senna touched going into Turn Two, which resulted in the Lotus losing a part of its front wing endplate.
As they showed replays of this incident, there was then a violent cut back to the action that showed Schumacher in the gravel with no front wing at all! His race was over again!
The camera then cut to show Senna trawling through the same gravel, he managed to get his car onto the grass, but he pulled over to the side of the circuit just a lap later and was also out of the race. Senna’s rear wing was damaged and had a left rear puncture. He had yet to come in for his first stop, which was how he ended up in that pack of cars.
Schumacher was attempting a pass on the Williams but didn’t anticipate Senna’s breaking point in time and crashed right into the back of him.
Schumacher tried to switch from the outside of the corner back onto the inside of Turn One but left it too late and simply rammed into the back of Senna. An unfortunate mistake from the 43 year old.
On lap 15, Hamilton came in for his first stop. He stayed out longer than the rest to try make use of the clean air, but he was slow leaving his pit box. He bounced over one of the used tyres on his way out of his box. That cost him a couple of crucial seconds.
He was 16th before the pit phase but came out just behind Hulkenberg. It was difficult to pinpoint what position he was actually in because the TV graphics seemingly were unable to cope with the Schumacher/Senna incident and took several laps to accurately update. My maths pins him down as being in 17th at this point, but it was not fully clear.
On lap 16, Grosjean eased by Rosberg and re-took fourth place. Rosberg moved onto the defensive inside line, but Grosjean left him for dust and took the normal racing line into Turn One.
Lap 17 began a nightmare for Webber. He was easily passed by Paul di Resta into Turn One. Vergne and Massa were easily past the Red Bull by Turn Four. Hamilton took advantage of the situation to get by Hulkenberg at the same corner before also getting around Webber at Turn Five.
His radio engineer informed him that he was “down on front load” which Brundle reckoned meant he cracked his front wing somewhere. He entered the pits for a new front wing at the end of that lap.
However, the TV graphic still thought he was in front of di Resta. The pit lane graphic popped up to tell the audience he was in 17th by the time he re-joined the track but whether or not you believe that, reader, is an entirely fair judgement to make either way.
A different version of the graphic, one that ran vertically on the left side of the screen, instead of horizontally at the bottom, then finally informed us that Hamilton had moved up as high as 12th place, he was now right behind Massa.
Webber was 15th according to that graphic, so more lies were being stripped down for our own eyes to see. We’ll never trust horizontal TV graphics ever again.
Ted Kravitz confirmed the issue with Webber’s car, it was beginning to lose load. But he did say that the front wing itself looked “fine.” All in all, a very strange problem to have with the car.
Hamilton was informed by his radio that the cars immediately ahead of him will be three-stopping, which implied that he will only be two-stopping.
On lap 23, Rosberg came in for a set of Hard tyres. At the same time as this happened, the stewards announced that Vettel and Massa were being investigated for ignoring yellow flags, which Brundle explained as “normally a slam dunk penalty because they are looking at something that’s been raised that they’ve clearly seen.”
The broadcast feed next showed Webber making a move on Vitaly Petrov, which moved him up to 16th place. Hang on, the graphic said he was 15th after the pit stop, which was it graphic, which one was the truth?? (My theory is that the makeshift graphic was drawn up while he was in the pits and that he did, in fact, come out in 17th, more on it as we get it.)
Meanwhile, the gap in front was only 1.6s, but Alonso was managing the gap all the time, his vast experience over Maldonado coming in handy at that point.
On lap 24, Hamilton tried to make a move around the outside of Massa into Turn One but was unable to make it by the Ferrari. These two had a history of collisions in 2011.
Maldonado came in on lap 25, but Alonso stayed out and got caught behind Charles Pic. Alonso was not happy with the Marussia driver and waved his hand up at him when he eventually got past the backmarker after being stuck behind him for four or five corners.
Button came in on lap 26 after flat spotting his left front tyre. He changed onto a set of Soft tyres.
Alonso arrived for his stop on lap 27, but he lost too much time behind Pic and Maldonado was too quick on his fresh set of tyres. Maldonado now led the race after undercutting the Ferrari! This drew a reference from David Croft to the final day of the 2011/12 Premier League season, yes that Sergio Aguerooooooooo day.
On lap 28, Vettel came in for his second stop and it was then announced he was given a drive-through penalty for the earlier infringement under the yellow flags.
Hamilton was still unable to get past Massa, but he was given the same penalty which freed up Hamilton once that was served.
Oddly, Brundle was baffled by that specific penalty but it’s a much more common punishment today than it was then. Kravitz explained it was for using DRS under the yellow flags. Even though Vettel may have lifted off, that was still against the rules.
He also explained that Lotus were regretting their decision to move onto the Soft tyre. Both of their drivers had come in again for Hard tyres and were now much quicker. They were 12s off Alonso at this point. Maldonado held a 7s lead on the Spaniard.
On lap 33, Kobayashi pulled his elbows out as he went around Button at Turn Five. They banged wheels, but no damage was done. The Japanese driver moved up into seventh.
Webber was stuck in 11th, he was unable to pass the Force India of Hulkenberg. As this was going on, Kravitz was back to tell Brundle that Ferrari reckoned Alonso should have the pace advantage in the final stint of the race. This was not over yet as we passed the halfway mark of the Grand Prix.
On lap 36, Hamilton came in for his second stop of the race. He was now back just behind di Resta in 14th which was where he started the stint. At least there were no problems in the pit lane this time around.
On lap 38, Vettel got around Button for seventh, they had both inherited a place from Hamilton’s pit stop but this McLaren was one of the few cars being overtaken on track in this race. One lap later and Button was into the pits for his last scheduled stop of the day.
Perez never recovered from the opening lap puncture caused by Grosjean on lap one, and was forced to retire on lap 40 after an incident in the pit lane with his right rear tyre caused him to stop at Turn 12.
On lap 41, Webber came in for his final stop. On track, Button passed Massa at Turn One.
Maldonado arrived for his final stop at the end of that lap, he was leading by roughly 3.5s before he came in. There was an issue with his left rear! That stop took a long time to be completed. He lost out on a few seconds there as it took 6s. Was this the chance Alonso needed to regain the lead?
On lap 43, Vettel changed his front wing too, just like his teammate earlier. He was now stuck behind Massa having been in fifth place. He was now 10th.
Alonso came in for his final stop on lap 45, Maldonado maintained the gap. The help of a few extra laps on the fresh rubber made up for the pit stop mistake, but he was now being held up by Raikkonen who was due to come in one last time.
Alonso gained .7s on Maldonado before the Venezuelan passed Raikkonen on lap 47. The Lotus was now holding up Alonso’s pursuit of the lead as he stayed out for another lap.
Alonso got by on lap 48 into Turn One, the gap to the leader was now 1.9s. Raikkonen came in at the end of that lap. Alonso was approaching Massa who was about to be lapped by Maldonado, a stark difference in performance from the two Ferrari drivers.
By lap 50, Alonso was within the DRS range but was unable to make a move for the lead. He was just too far back.
Grosjean pitted on lap 52, moving Raikkonen back into the podium positions. Meanwhile, Alonso was beginning to struggle with understeer being stuck in the dirty air behind the Williams. They tussled for sixth place in Australia, but now four races later it was for the race victory.
Maldonado was able to gain time through the backmarkers — yes, that included Massa — but by lap 56, Alonso was back into DRS range. This prompted Croft to imitate the classic Jaws theme song, which received absolutely no acknowledgement from Brundle whatsoever.
Alonso’s race engineer was onto the radio to tell him that he could use the overtake button more, essentially explaining that they were giving him all the power available to him. However, he was still just about too far back. There was roughly 50m between the two by lap 58 of 66.
Further back on the track, Hamilton had moved up to seventh. Vettel once again got around Button, this time at Turn 11, and was up to eighth place.
By lap 60 it was beginning to look like Alonso had run out of steam, the gap was now 1.4s. However, Raikkonen had gained 10s on the Ferrari and was closing in.
Kobayashi was also creeping up on the car ahead, which happened to be Rosberg in fifth. He dove down Turn 11 and Rosberg locked up, another brave overtaking move yielded another scalp for the Sauber and he moved up into fifth as his reward.
In the meantime, Webber was still stuck in 11th.
On lap 63, Vettel moved ahead of Hamilton for seventh. The commentary made the point that they added 50m to the DRS zone this year compared to 2011 and it did actually lead to more overtaking than the year before. The early DRS train was a long forgotten memory in an otherwise overtake positive race.
Alonso was now struggling on his tyres with just a few laps to go. Raikkonen was quickly gaining. Vettel was also gaining rapidly on the car ahead. He was 3.1s faster than Rosberg, and moved ahead of him with total ease on lap 65. He simply had way more grip than the Mercedes. Webber was still stuck in 11th and was about to be lapped.
Raikkonen brought the gap down to 2.3s to Alonso on the final lap, but it wasn’t enough. They would both have to settle for second and third, rueing a race they both felt like they could have won.
But instead it was the Williams of Maldonado that came home to take the chequered flag in first place! A fifth winner from five different races and the first Williams winner since Juan Pablo Montoya in 2004!
The final standings were as follows
Championship Standings Top Five (Round 5)
Alonso moved level with Vettel after five races. With five different winners from five different teams it was hard to tell what would happen next. The fact Webber was only 13 points off the lead despite having an unspectacular start to the season showed just how even everything was.
One good race was all it took for Vettel to go to the top, but Alonso similarly had one good race and he too was back at the top having been fifth going into that weekend. Hamilton and Raikkonen also showed that a few podiums was enough of a points haul that it was possible to stay within touching distance.
Going into Monaco next, it was hard to tell who would take advantage next. Red Bull looked so good in Bahrain but way off the pace in Spain. Alonso was quick, but Massa was so slow that it was hard to get a read on Ferrari’s true pace.
McLaren had the most to regret at this point, both Button and Hamilton had thrown away points through errors on track and in the pit lane. If things had gone more smoothly maybe they’d be out in front at this stage.
Post-Race
Wild celebrations were shown in the Williams garage. Toto Wolff was the first to congratulate Sir Frank Williams. He had stepped down from the board of the team only two months prior but he was still team principal and more than ready to soak in the joy of a first win in eight years.
The team that once dominated the sport had been left behind in the midfield in the 2000s and this was the final win in F1 that the team earned under the ownership of the Williams family, a significant moment in the history of F1.
This was the first victory for Maldonado in his F1 career. He was propped up on the shoulders of Raikkonen and Alonso at the podium.
“Very moderate words,” was how Brundle described the oddly subdued celebration from Maldonado and his radio engineer. However, he did crash into the cameraman while parading with his team in Parc fermé, some things never change with this guy.
It was unfortunately a very subdued ending to the day as, 90 minutes after the race finished, a fire broke out from the Williams garage.
There were mixed reports as to the exact cause of the fire, but it was from Senna’s side of the garage that it originated from. 31 people were injured, but fortunately everyone survived. Maldonado went into the garage and rescued his 12-year old nephew who suffered a broken foot.
The fire disaster did highlight some good, as the F1 paddock came together to help Williams recover what was lost in the accident.
“I think [the fire] showed the best of Formula One actually because all of the teams came together with the fire extinguishers, and really showed that in difficult moments like that Formula One is a small community,” reflected David Coulthard on the BBC’s F1 2012 season review show.
Team In Focus
Well, the focus of this race has to be on Williams and Maldonado. The driver obviously deserved plaudits for the way he drove in this race, but his total of four points up to that weekend did not accurately reflect what this Williams team itself deserved.
Maldonado was sixth on the final lap in Australia before crashing of his own accord, he was 10th in Malaysia when he had to retire on the penultimate lap with engine issues, he picked up four points from an eighth place finish in China and in Bahrain his car suffered more mechanical issues that resulted in a DNF.
This was a car capable of scoring points consistently, but circumstances prevented that up to now.
Maldonado’s reputation during his F1 career was not very good. He was prone to ridiculous crashes both with other drivers and just by himself. Some of his crashes were very high profile, which will be covered in greater depth later on in this series no doubt, but he did have solid pace for a pay driver.
Being a pay driver in itself in F1 already also immediately tarnishes your ability as a competitor, but he showed throughout this season that he had good pace. This race showcased that talent shining through. He managed his tyres well and held firm under intense pressure from Alonso.
Seeing Williams back on the top step of the podium was a great feel good moment for F1. It had been a long time since they were this competitive and this showed that they had bounced back from a terrible 2011 season.
Race Verdict
As stated earlier, Spain can tend to be a dull track that is difficult to overtake on. But this edition was surprisingly entertaining. The mix up of the top drivers helped as they tried to make their way through the traffic, but the race at the front was also very gripping.
It was the same dynamic as in Malaysia and Bahrain with the second place driver gaining and gaining unexpectedly on the leader and once again the man in first was able to hold on.
In Malaysia, driver error from Perez cost him the win and Raikkonen was let down in Bahrain by team strategy. This time Alonso just wasn’t able to quite get close enough to make the move.
Lotus had another strong showing and again strategy perhaps let them down, but consistently fighting for podiums was a big step up from where they were in 2011.
The action was filled throughout the top 14 drivers, there were no long periods without action. Initially it did start slowly, but it was consistently interesting. It lacked the big moments that elevate the best races, but it was totally solid throughout.
Maldonado being a deserved first time winner was certainly a great story, particularly with Williams, but the ramifications for the championship were still too early to make that big a dramatic difference.
Result: 4/5
Next up: MONACO
Previous entries in the series can be found here:
The Introduction
Part 1: Pre-season
Part 2: Australia
Part 3: Malaysia
Part 4: China
Part 5: Bahrain