Spanish GP – THE POINT… by Gian Carlo Minardi

Five out of five: Mercedes continues its solo ride, thanks to the poker played by Lewis Hamilton who finished first, before (for half a second) Nico Rosberg, fierce until the last corner.

The Spanish Grand Prix underlined once again the great strength of the W05 and the gap on the lap of more than 1’’ between Mercedes and Red Bull and of 1’’50’/1’’80’ between Mercedes and Ferrari, with two teams, Williams and Lotus (the last scoring the first points just in Spain) which can be considered as outsiders in the second bracket.

Free practice, qualifying and race: Mercedes’ superiority is so high that they give the impression of “playing” with rivals, as we have seen with the strategies during the race. It won’t certainly be an easy mission to recover such a gap, as we are talking of a distance of 49’’ between the Mercedes and the first of the opponents, i.e. Ricciardo’s Red Bull.

This weekend we saw the result of the great work done in the last three weeks by Red Bull, Lotus and Williams, something that cannot be said for Ferrari, with Alonso first among non-dubbed pilots and Raikkonen opening the dancing between drivers outdistanced of 1 gap and the McLarens, still out of the score-zone.

Mercedes’ superiority makes me go back to the 80s and early 90s, when McLaren won as much as 15 races out of 16 starts, behind which other teams placed in pairs, just as happened in Spain with two Mercedes, two Red Bulls, a Williams, two Ferraris, a Lotus, a Force India and a two McLarens.

The race was animated by the recovery of Rosberg, who finished just over half a second from the teammate, and by the various overtakings performed by Sebastian Vettel, also helped by the strategies, who closed at the foot of the podium, after a fifteenth position on the starting grid.