Montmelo, (Barcelona) 9 May

Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro has closed the gap to McLaren, the current leaders of the Constructors’ classification from nineteen to just three points, thanks to a generous haul of twenty six points picked up in this afternoon’s Spanish Grand Prix, the fifth round of the world championship. Fernando Alonso finished second, much to the delight of the Spanish crowd cheering him on the podium, behind race winner and pole man Mark Webber, whose Red Bull team-mate, Sebastian Vettel came home third. However, Red Bull has also closed the gap to a similar distance behind the Prancing Horse. Fernando now moves to second in the Drivers’ classification, while Felipe Massa contributed a valuable eight points by coming home sixth.



As the lights went out, Webber drove aggressively to keep his team-mate behind him, while Fernando came alongside Hamilton, but could not pass him so that he was lying fourth, where he would stay for nearly the entire race. Felipe got a good start from the fifth row, immediately jumping two places to seventh. He too would spend much of the race here, always in touch with the race long duel ahead of him between fifth placed Michael Schumacher and Jenson Button in sixth. However, the weekend long lack of grip meant the Brazilian could never really mount an effective challenge on those ahead. Apart from those drivers who had problems or penalties, everyone was on a one-stop strategy and the pit stops did little to change any places, with the exception of Hamilton getting ahead of Vettel to go second behind Webber, whose lead was never challenged.

Although there were some interesting battles in the midfield, the order hardly changed among the front runners, until a few laps from the end. Vettel was the first to run into trouble, running wide through a gravel trap, making an extra pit stop, which allowed Hamilton to move up to second, Fernando to third and Felipe to seventh. Then, with two laps remaining the English McLaren driver suffered a left front puncture which saw him crashing into the barriers and out of the race. You could hear the noise of the partisan crowd above the engines as this promoted Fernando to second place and also meant Felipe was now sixth.
The final race result for the points finishers thus read like this: Webber, Alonso, Vettel on the podium, with Schumacher fourth, followed by Button, Massa, Sutil, Kubica, Barrichello and Alguersuari.

The twelve teams now tackle the shortest “back to back” schedule in the history of the sport, as the next round takes place around the twisty streets of Monaco, where traditionally, the first day of practice is on Thursday rather than Friday.