Google+ Jack Leslie F1: 2015 Spanish Grand Prix: Sunday

10 May 2015

2015 Spanish Grand Prix: Sunday

Nico Rosberg stormed to a controlled and dominant victory at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, becoming the ninth different Spanish Grand Prix winner in nine years. 
It was a quiet morning in the F1 paddock, but a very busy afternoon, with plenty to report on after round five of the season. 

Despite the race not starting until 14:00pm local time, there was no chance of a lie-in. Another 6:30am alarm meant we arrived at the circuit just before 8:00am. After setting up, it was time for Ferrari breakfast. We were so keen that they weren’t actually ready for us, but it was well worth the wait. 
 
The morning before an F1 race is an odd time. There are GP2 and GP3 races for the European rounds, but it only fills up a small amount of time. I was kept fairly busy with small pieces, like a Formula E report for RumbleStripNews and a couple of short news pieces about next week’s test. 

It was then time to head to Red Bull for more free food – this time some amazing lasagne. The race quickly approached, and it was time to turn attentions to the drivers’ parade, laps to the grid and the build-up to the start. During that time, there was a lot of rushing to the window, taking pictures and rushing back to share them on social media. 

The Richland F1 Twitter feed was then handed over to my colleague Rosie Baillie for the race, while I focused on the race report. It was a decent race, quite interesting but far from a thriller. Strategy proved to be key, but Rosberg was just on another level in Spain. He has gone well at the track before, but I was still surprised by how controlled he was and his pace throughout. 

The German completed a two-stop race and finished well clear of Lewis Hamilton, who switched to a three-stopper to try and make up for the ground lost due to an uncharacteristically bad start. It was damage limitation from there and he recovered well, but there was no way he could challenge Rosberg. 
Sebastian Vettel kept with Hamilton for the opening half of the race, but once the Brit got past him when he emerged from his final stop, he dropped back considerably. Still, third was a positive result, even if Mercedes appears to have increased its advantage slightly. 

There were some good battles in the midfield, one of which saw Carlos Sainz Jr and Daniil Kvyat sent to the stewards. The FIA confirmed later that no further action was taken. It was a difficult day for pit stops – Hamilton and several others suffered problems, while Fernando Alonso overshot his with brake issues and Romain Grosjean did the same thanks to a slippery pit box. 

Post-race was a busy, busy time, with plenty to do despite few media sessions. Plenty was covered on Richland F1 by Rosie and I throughout the day, so be sure to check out our work here. 

It was great to finally meet Rosie and it was brilliant working with her, I think we did really well. I am quite pleased overall with my content but I could have probably done a little bit more and given pieces some more attention. 

There is still plenty of Spanish GP coverage to come though so stay tuned. My fourth F1 race as an accredited journalist was a fantastic experience and I am so thankful to have been given another opportunity to report from the paddock (big shout out to Luke Smith!), it is the first of hopefully six races this year so it should be a brilliant summer, before I head back to University in September. 

However, I’m not leaving Spain just yet. I’m staying on for the two-day test, which takes place on Tuesday and Wednesday. Full coverage will be on Richland F1 and I’ll be doing a testing blog once I am back in the UK. It should be an interesting event and will see several young drivers get behind the wheel of F1 machinery. 

Other Spanish Grand Prix blogs: 

Wednesday – http://bit.ly/1EXEHVh
Thursday – http://bit.ly/1cspAIR
 Friday – http://bit.ly/1ImOfvC
Saturday - http://bit.ly/1KTJM1q

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