Spanish Grand Prix Review

Alonso-mania is an incredible phenomenon, single-handedly responsible for the upsurge in interest in F1 in the motorcycling-mad nation. The fervour at Barcelona on Sunday was a type the likes of which F1 hasn't seen since maybe Mansell-mania at Silverstone in 1991 and 1992. Surprisingly, Schumi has never seemed to attract such a passion in Germany; maybe that's just a perception, maybe it's the nature of the circuits, or maybe it's because German allegiance is split between Schumi, Mercedes and BMW.

Fernando awarded his legion of fans in style, firstly with an awesome pole lap (even if, on fuel corrected times, Giancarlo Fisichella and Michael's laps were even better), and then terrific pace in the first stint that knocked the stuffing out of the contest. But what really did it was his pace on heavy fuel after both his stops whilst Michael was running light. It was more than enough to out Ferrari's attempt to spoil the blue and yellow party. In so doing, Alonso stretched his championship lead back out to 15 points.

Clearly, Renault and Ferrari are miles ahead of the rest, now that the season has settled down. One can see more of this toing and froing, where Schumi wins some, then Alonso wins some, and so on. In which case the Renault driver's buffer over the German, thanks to Malaysia and Australia, could come in very handy indeed. Fernando has scored only 1sts and 2nds this year, and at this rate is on course for an even more consistent season than, say, Michael in 2002, although he probably won't match Schumi's 2004 win record.

Schumi's face in the post-race press-conference was like thunder. He expected to be strong in this race, and Renault had managed to revenge the recent out-psyching that Ferrari has given them by stroking Maranello's confidence when they said they were worried by the red cars' speed. In hindsight, Michael was never going to make up a gap of a dozen seconds after the first stint. The 248 F1 chassis and the Bridgestones are good, but maybe even now still just gives something away to the Renaults and Michelins.

Michael knows that more work is needed, and that's where his unrivalled ethic comes to the fore. If he can chase down Alonso and overhaul him by season's end, it would be an astounding, grafting achievement and arguably his best title yet - even better than his 1995 title, where he dominated in an inferior car, or his 2000 victory where he withstood the season-long challenge from the possibly-faster McLarens to finally break Ferrari's championship drought.

As for their team-mates though, Felipe Massa put in another respectable drive, but he set the fastest lap of the race, and one wonders if he could have replicated that kind of speed more often. And if so, whether he could have taken more points off Renault by beating Fisichella home. As for the Roman, he played the dutiful rear-gunner role in the first stint, and it wasn't as though he was obviously holding up the Ferrari, so his pace in that segment of the race wasn't that bad.

Kimi Raikkonen and McLaren will be dismayed. It was an awesome start from Kimi, scything from 9th to 5th through the slow-starting Toyotas and around the outside of Rubens Barrichello's Honda at the first turn. But from there it was a case of the not-so-flying Finn, eventually finishing a lonely 5th some 56 seconds behind Alonso in a race he dominated last year. There is no more one can say apart from the fact that McLaren simply don't have the pace, and are staring at their first winless year since 1996.

How must Alonso feel, knowing that he's going there in 2007? On the engineering front, McLaren have already lost Adrian Newey, Nicholas Tombazis and Peter Prodromou, but that was not meant to affect the performance of the Newey-penned MP4/21. The present indication is that it has, because the McLaren is slipping further and further away from the pace, and seemingly powerless to respond. On current trends, the prospects for the 2007 MP4/22 already look somewhat bleak ...

It's bleak enough as it is right now, especially since it feels like both drivers are losing interest fast with the likelihood of both leaving at the end of this year growing daily. Juan-Pablo Montoya's weekend, much like at the Nurburgring, was marked by sheer mediocrity. His qualifying was half-hearted resulting in a heavy fuel load to start the race with, which hindered him anyway before his lazy spin into retirement, all of which was plenty of evidence for us to give him the 'Reject of the Race' award.

At this point, it's worthwhile noting that the Hondas ran in adjacent positions (even if not in nose-to-tail formation) all race. That kind of thing was the story of both qualifying and the race. The Spanish GP is invariably boring (almost to Hungary levels) because the circuit layout is not conducive to slipstreams and passing, and there is so much testing there that everyone's performance is optimised and there's virtually no chance of anyone miscalculating their set up and having the field mixed up as a result.

The Toyotas were likewise together for most of the first stint, with Jarno Trulli for once ahead of Ralf Schumacher. It was a mercifully improved race for Jarno, but still not quite good enough, and once again he ran in the points early only to drop out of it as the race went on, eventually coming home 10th. This is starting to get excruciating. After Spain last year (the 5th race of the season; this year it's the 6th) he was 2nd in the championship with 26 points. That must seem so long ago.

After a spate of respectable performances lately, Ralf squandered all his brownie points with his pathetic attempt to pass Trulli, only to get half his front wing chopped off before an eventually electronics-induced DNF. Does he ever learn? After knocking out team-mate Fisichella en route to 3rd place in only his 3rd GP in Argentina in 1997 when he was at Jordan, and after numerous contretemps with Montoya at Williams (the most famous being at Indy in 2002), you'd think he'd remember not to hit his team-mates any more.

REJECT OF THE RACE
Juan Pablo Montoya
Dumbfounded after slipshod spin

Villeneuve's race was scuppered by an engine change before the weekend after the motor was unfathomably damaged in transit, and then again before the race. On heavy fuel, with fairly little attrition, there was not much he could do. Williams will be feeling the same way after getting both cars to the finish for once, but, as Murphy's law would dictate, it was in a race where the FW28s weren't quite quick enough to score. Neither had made it into the third part of qualifying, the first time Webber had missed out.

Both Webber and Nico Rosberg in fact ran very strong races on a heavy-fuelled strategy, eventually climbing from their grid positions to 9th and 11th in the race. Rosberg also put in a spirited attempt very late in the race to pass Trulli for 10th, an amusing and encouraging little highlight at the end even if it came to naught. The reality is that there are five teams - McLaren, Honda, Williams, Toyota and BMW - who are all fighting for the last four points places behind the Renaults and Ferraris, and 10 into 4 just won't fit.

It was another disappointing weekend for Red Bull, especially given that both David Coulthard and Christian Klien were in the top 10 in Saturday practice. If there was any positive to be gleaned, it was the fact that both finished, but a lapped 13th and 14th is hardly fantastic. Klien responded to recent poor qualifying form and rumours that he was about to be replaced by test driver Robert Doornbos by putting in a solid run even if there was not much of note to report.

Both Red Bulls actually ran behind the fast-starting Toro Rossos early in the race, but eventually the Austrian-Italian cars fell back behind their stablemates, but still ahead of the Midlands and Super Aguris, prompting Colin Kolles to renew his monotonous calls for the V10 equivalency formula to be revisited. Without much opportunity to shine, it was also a fairly quiet weekend for Vitantonio Liuzzi who, once he had made it into part 2 of qualifying, seemed resigned to starting 16th.

The Italian also found himself behind Scott Speed all race. This was one of the American's strongest races to date, with impressive Sunday pace that kept him ahead of his highly-rated team-mate until an uncharacteristic engine problem from the Cosworth V10 sidelined him. There is much to like about Speed's speed come race day, but his qualifying pace continues to need work. Once again he was the Toro Rosso driver who missed out on Q2, whereas Liuzzi made it through.

The unexpected step by the FIA to revoke Yuji Ide's superlicence saw Montagny drive for Aguri Suzuki's team once again, and all in all it is a positive thing for the team. The Frenchman has proven strong, again just about matching and nearly beating Takuma Sato's lap times in practice and qualifying, and running ahead of the Japanese driver in the initial stages of the race until his early driveshaft failure. But for his nationality, he ought to be retained for the rest of the season.

Sato was once again solid, but this time fairly unspectacular, as Super Aguri await their new car, due for the French GP. But first there's Monaco for them and for all the rest to negotiate - a race which is always interesting and somewhat eventful even if there is hardly any passing. There's also the added interest of how free-for-all qualifying will go on this tightest of street circuits, especially in the first segment when all 22 cars will be on the track. There will doubtless be plenty to talk about.