The beginning of the 2012 Formula One season was anything but predictable. With seven victors from five teams across the first seven races, it was very much unclear who, if anybody had a significant advantage over the rest. Two first-time winners emerged from this period, and the latter of those occurred at the 2012 Spanish Grand Prix, where Pastor Maldonado held off Fernando Alonso’s revitalised Ferrari for a brilliant first – and to date only race win.
The Spanish Grand Prix is usually the first European race of the modern Formula 1 season, and therefore the round where the majority of teams introduce a raft of upgrades for their cars. An in-season test at Mugello helped with these upgrades. With four race winners from the first four races – Jenson Button for McLaren at Australia, Fernando Alonso for Ferrari at Malaysia, Nico Rosberg for Mercedes at China and Sebastian Vettel for Red Bull at Bahrain, the championship was predictably tight. Vettel led Lewis Hamilton by just four points; with the German’s team mate Mark Webber a further point behind. Button was ten points behind, level with Alonso.
It appeared that at the start of the season, McLaren had the fastest car, with Red Bull, Lotus and Mercedes both very much at the sharp end of the grid too. Both Sauber and Williams had handy cars as well. However, some great performances by Fernando Alonso and Sergio Perez at a wet Malaysia propelled them up the grid, whilst McLaren suffered technical problems and serious problems in the pit lane in just about every race. For Spain, the order took a slight twist, as it became clear that Williams and Ferrari had made significant strides on their rivals.
In the first part of qualifying, the usual suspects fell foul to the aerodynamically-reliant Catalunya circuit with the Caterhams, Marussias and HRTs failing to make the cut. The big name to drop out of the session was Bruno Senna in the Williams, after he spun off in the closing stages of the session. The second session saw three big names drop out in Jenson Button, Mark Webber and Felipe Massa, as well as the two Force Indias and the two Toro Rossos. Lewis Hamilton went quickest in the final part of qualifying ahead of a star performer in Pastor Maldonado ahead of Alonso, signalling that Ferrari had closed a significant gap over the rest of the field. Romain Grosjean outqualified his World Champion team mate Kimi Räikkönen whilst Sergio Perez took his best grid slot up until that point. Nico Rosberg, Sebastian Vettel, Michael Schumacher and Kamui Kobayashi rounded out the top ten.
The provisional result did not stand however; as it emerged later on in the day that Lewis Hamilton did not have a sufficient amount of fuel in his car at the end of Q3, meaning that he was excluded from qualifying. This then stuck Pastor Maldonado on pole ahead of Fernando Alonso, an unlikely front row given the results of the first four races.
Alonso made the best start out of anybody at the start, taking the lead from Maldonado, who slotted into second. Grosjean clipped the tyre of Perez, who suffered a puncture as a result. Mark Webber had trademark bad start and slipped all the way down into 15th place. Catalunya is a circuit where tyre wear is very high, so in the Pirelli era, it was not hugely surprising to see the first scheduled pit stops coming on lap seven. By lap nine, both of the Red Bull and Sauber drivers had pitted. Hamilton was making his way through the field from dead last, and was looking after his tyres pretty well considering the overtaking he had to do. The top three (Alonso, Maldonado, Räikkönen respectively) were pulling out a gap to Grosjean in fourth place as they all came to make their stops. Räikkönen was the only one of these to remain on the softer compound tyre.
On lap 13, Michael Schumacher crashed out of the race as he hit Bruno Senna’s Williams. Schumacher was later judged to be at fault and was given a five-place grid penalty for the following race. Two laps later, Hamilton pitted from what was fourth place. Webber pitted shortly after for a new front wing and a fresh set of rubber. Over the next ten laps or so, a crucial strategic battle took place, as Maldonado began to close in on Alonso for the lead of the race. Maldonado pitted first and set about posting some quick lap times, whilst Alonso struggled to lap Charles Pic’s Marussia. With this, Alonso lost the lead to Maldonado, who now had to keep an enraged two-time World Champion behind him. Räikkönen stayed out longer on his soft tyres, and dropped back to third again after he pitted, this time for the harder tyre. However, the Lotuses looked much better pace-wise on the harder tyre, so perhaps a strategic error had occurred there. Both Sebastian Vettel and Felipe Massa were given penalties for failing to slow for waved yellow flags.
As the race entered the second half, it started to become clear that this race would probably be won by either of the current top three. Kamui Kobayashi pulled out one of his trademark daring overtakes on Jenson Button. Hamilton made his final stop on lap 36, and left the pits in 14th place. At the final round of stops, Maldonado had a slight issue with one of his wheels, costing him a few seconds. Despite this, he was just about able to hold onto the lead. At the same time, Räikkönen was beginning to make his charge, as he had preserved his tyres for the closing stages of the race. Also on a charge was Sebastian Vettel, who took some vital championship points from Hamilton as they fought over eighth place.
Maldonado only just held off Alonso to take his and Venezuela’s first ever Grand Prix win in brilliant fashion, with Räikkönen not far behind in third. It was also the first Williams win for eight years on the weekend that Sir Frank Williams celebrated his 70th birthday. Grosjean took a fine fourth ahead of Kobayashi who took a strong result for Sauber having passed Rosberg late in the race. Vettel finished sixth ahead of Rosberg whilst Hamilton finished ahead of his team mate Button despite starting dead last. Nico Hülkenberg held off Mark Webber for the final point. This put Alonso and Vettel absolutely equal on 61 points, with Hamilton, Räikkönen and Webber eight, 12 and 13 points behind respectively. The drama was not completely over however as the Williams pit garage caught fire not long after the race whilst people were celebrating Maldonado’s historic win. A fuel leak was found to be the cause, and 31 people were injured. In a superb gesture from the other teams, members from those around helped to put out the fire in the garage, and even loaned equipment to the Williams team for the next round at Monaco. Perhaps Formula 1 was well and truly on the right tracks once again with a classic Spanish Grand Prix.
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