Lewis Hamilton wins the Spanish Grand Prix

2014 Spanish Grand Prix summary

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Lewis Hamilton withstood fierce pressure from team mate Nico Rosberg at the end of the race to win the Spanish Grand Prix.

Rosberg closed to within six-tenths of a second of his team mate at the finishing line but Hamilton hung on to take his fourth consecutive race win.

The Mercedes drivers pushed each other to finish 48 seconds clear of their pursuers, who were led by Daniel Ricciardo. The Red Bull driver fell behind Valtteri Bottas at the start but jumped ahead of the Williams driver at his first pit stop.

The podium finishers all pitted twice but Sebastian Vettel used a three-stop strategy to climb from 15th on the grid to finish behind his team mate.

Bottas feel to fifth ahead of the two Ferrari drivers, who also swapped places late in the race. Fernando Alonso, who emulated Vettel’s three-stopper, eventually made a move on Kimi Raikkonen at turn four.

The two Ferraris passed Romain Grosjean earlier in the race but the Lotus driver hung on to claim the team’s first points of the year with eighth. Behind him were the two Force Indias, Sergio Perez passing Nico Hulkenberg towards the end of the grand prix.

The McLaren pair finished outside of the points followed by Felipe Massa’s delayed Williams. Jean-Eric Vergne and Kamui Kobayashi were the only non-finishers.

2014 Spanish Grand Prix

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Image © Daimler/Hoch Zwei

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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30 comments on “Lewis Hamilton wins the Spanish Grand Prix”

  1. Rosberg gained 3 seconds in the pits alone to Hamilton. Rosberg however seemed the faster guy but still could not pass him. I’m starting to wonder why Rosberg didn’t try something alternative like a three stop?

    Go option / prime / option / option, Vettel made it work perfect. He has a guaranteed second place, why not try something different then?

    1. That idea only makes sense in retrospect.

      At the end of the day Rosberg was right behind Hamilton, proving that the strategy gave him a decent chance at taking the win. Can you imagine if they’d made a call to put him on a three-stopper and he had lost? The question would then be asked why they did it.

    2. Something different = taking pole.

      1. Or maybe Q2 on hard tyres? The car seems to be fast enough to go to Q3 with that, only the start on hards could be a bit risky…

    3. Well.. he tried something different by going on mediums for the last stine. Doing a 3 stoppper is a whole lot more risky in terms of a larger gap to Lewis

      1. It wasn’t any different to what he did in Bahrain, where he also finished the race with the softer compound, and still couldn’t overtake Lewis.

    4. @xtwl, to do a three stop you need to be allowed the undercut, which is a tricky thing between team mates. Doing a three-stop would have been an option for Hamilton, if he felt that would have been quicker.

    5. I didn’t expect him to win on pace so in my mind doing something different might aid him to a win.

  2. Well deserved place for Alonso. He wasn’t the number one driver this time. Really.

  3. Such a shame Grosjean couldn’t hold to that brilliant fifth place from which he started. Still amazing for him he finished in the points.
    If Lotus keeps improving at the rate they have been for the past few races, I reckon they could be fighting for the final podium spot in a couple of rounds.

  4. I’m loving this season, no other season since i started watching F1 made my heart race. I’m so excited and looking forward to not just Monaco but the rest of the season!

    YEY!

  5. Rosberg waited longer than just one lap (after Hamilton came into the pits) on both of his pitstops to come into the pits. This meant losing time because of older tyres when everything fell back into place.
    I can’t understand this from Nico’s engineers point of view. With these tyres, it is crucial to pit as soon as your closest rivals on track are pitting to protect your advantage/minimize your disadvantage.
    Rosberg lost a chance to make a move for the lead because of poor tactics today, because on track they where very similar in pace.

    This was clear in Bottas case. He was similar to Ricciardo befor the pitstop. Williams opted to wait a few lap longer and when he came out of the pits, he was around 12(!!) seconds behind Ricciardo.

    1. After HAM first pitstop ROS had his fastest lap of the race until that time. Also HAM lost time in the pitstop and stuck behing couple of backmarkers on his first lap after the first pitstop. Dont see you point valid for the first pitstop though you are right for the second one. But then ROS is on harder compound before his second pitstop and is expected to do more laps than HAM on softer compound if not he may not have the pace in the ending laps.

  6. Congrats Lewis….

    But go fire all the Engineers on your side of the Garage!

    1. @jason12 I know, tell me about it. Maybe some new engineers will be able to deliver a race winning strategy… oh wait…

  7. What a drive !

  8. What I want to know is why Hamilton was saving so much fuel? His car would’ve been 3kg at the end, losing ~2 tenths each lap.

    1. I think it’s more about saving the tyres at some point, being in clean air for a moment, and maybe preserving fuel in case of a late battle.

    2. Obviously Hamilton must have started lighter than Rosberg, the team surely aren’t that stupid to let him finish with so much more fuel spare.

    3. It was kg used, and we don’t know how much they had in the tank.

  9. @ Now for the Mercedes duo, even more than usual, the pole at Monaco becomes critical.
    Unless the crews can create a pass in the pits whoever leads out of the first turn wins.

  10. This year championship between Lewis & Nico would be down to reliability of each car/engine…
    Just a thought how close this season is…
    Imagine lewis wins 3 more races = 7 races in row, with nico wins how many ? = 1 and suddenly lewis DNF & Nico win, He’d 3 points behind, he’ll go 7 * 3 = 21 pts behind by = 24, and in case lewis DNF and nico’s only second win, he’s back leading WDC by +1 point. Crazy isn’t it? 7wins to 2wins but 2DNFs for first guy will still be behind!

    1. In short 7 * 25 + 2DNF < 2 * 25 + 7 * 18

      1. sick thinking, let the most deserving win the title

    2. Why didn’t you state the scenario where Rosberg has also one DNF too. I guess Rosberg’s car has become bullet proof.

      1. Because it’s irrelevant to the point being made.

    3. Interesting, I’ve been thinking since its inception that the current points system places too much emphasis on reliability and settling for second. If we really must have points awarded down to 10th place to give the smaller teams half a chance of racking up a few points occasionally in a world of almost bulletproof reliability, I’d prefer to see 25, 15,10, 8, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, thus keeping the same proportions between the podium positions as when it was 10, 6, 4, 3, 2, 1.

  11. Heck of a drive by Seb. Nice to see him overtake in a car that is clearly far from the best. Wonder what the haters will come up with next?

    Great drive by Ric as well. Nice to see RBR so far ahead of Ferrari this season (the only solace I think I’m going to get all year).

    1. It’s not that hard to overtake with a car that is second best. Plus I think they have aerodynamically a slightly better car than the Merc.

    2. His car is far the best in terms of everyone else except Mercedes.

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