BARCELONA: Nico Rosberg finally got the better of Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton this season, when he drove to a near-flawless victory in the Spanish Grand Prix on Sunday to gain ground on the Formula One championship leader.

The 29-year-old German, who had been beaten by Hamilton in all four of this year’s ‘flyaway’ season-opening races, led from the 16th pole position of his career all the way to the chequered flag, his supremacy interrupted only by his pit-stops.

The morale-boosting win was Rosberg’s first since last November’s Brazilian Grand Prix — the penultimate race of last season — and the ninth of his career, and trimmed defending champion Hamilton’s lead from 27 points to 20 with 14 races remaining.

He was also the ninth different winner in the last nine years at the Circuit de Catalunya. As Rosberg milked the applause, Hamilton walked up to him, patted him on the back and then shook his hand firmly.

“This is a fantastic weekend. Everything worked out on Saturday and Sunday, it all came together,” Rosberg, who took the chequered flag 17.5 seconds clear of his title rival, told reporters.

“That still we are dominating in such a way is fantastic to see,” he added on Mercedes’ third one-two of the season.

Hamilton, who was told late in the race that it would be impossible to catch the German, finished second after shaking up his strategy and making one more pit-stop.

Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel, who had seized second place into the first corner after Hamilton suffered wheelspin and made a slow getaway from the front row, was third at the chequered flag ahead of Finns Valtteri Bottas of Williams and Kimi Raikkonen, in the second Ferrari.

Hamilton has won three of five races this season, with four-time champion Vettel the only other driver to beat him when the German driver won the Malaysian GP in March.

Brazilian Felipe Massa was sixth in the second Williams ahead of Australian Daniel Ricciardo of Red Bull and Frenchman Romain Grosjean of Lotus.

Local hero Carlos Sainz won a late wheel-to-wheel battle with his Toro Rosso team-mate, Dutch teenager Jos Verstappen, to take 10th and then ‘stole’ ninth from Russian Daniil Kvyat in the second Red Bull. Kvyat finished 10th.

It was another day of disappointment for the struggling McLaren Honda team who extended their pointless start to the season.

Two-time F1 champion Fernando Alonso retired just short of halfway with faulty brakes — on the same track where he last won a race two years ago with Ferrari. The Spaniard’s brakes failure saw him narrowly avoid colliding with his own pit crew while Briton Jenson Button finished 16th.

In another dramatic pit-lane incident Grosjean also over-shot his pit-stop and sent a mechanic, clinging to the front jack, flying. He was, fortunately, reported not seriously injured.

Published in Dawn, May 11th, 2015

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