Qualifying was an interesting session, this year the grid has been a bit jumbled up compared to the familiarity of last years grid where you knew roughly which teams were going to place where... not this season.
Position for 10th on the grid in quali was a battle between Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso a unique scene for sure, while pole was taken early on in the session after Nico Rosberg's stormer of a lap.
So an exciting race beaconed.
Nico Rosberg has a great start of the line, leading the pack in to the first corner, closely followed by teammate Michael Schumacher and Jenson Button. Kamui Kobayashi dropped down the field after starting in third, joining him on the bad start front was Sebastian Vettel not ideal for him or the team.
Nico Rosberg started setting fastest lap after fastest lap building a gap between him and Schumacher.
Mark Webber was the first to blink and pitted on Lap 6 for fresh tyres. Four laps later it is Vettel in the pits which caused the domino affect after Webber started setting fastest laps. However, the pit stops up and down the pit lane were far from drama free, teams pit stop's didn't seem to be up to their usual standards with a lot of delays getting the tyre's on and for Schumacher it was race over after an unsafe release, a frantic mechanic waving his hands in a gesture known as 'the tyre wasn't on', Schumi slowed down after exiting the pits and pulled up his Merc.
With so many overtakes and pit action the order frequently changed. Jenson Button was Nico Rosberg's only competition for the win, being 7.4 seconds behind the German on lap 39 Button came in for new tyre's, trouble with getting his tyre on - a nightmare of a stop for McLaren, he had to wait in his box for 10 seconds before being released and able to rejoin the race... but that was it, there wasn't enough laps left to make up the time lost - just goes to show every second counts.
Rosberg was told over his radio he could now afford to lose a second of his time each lap and it wouldn't make a difference, he'd still win the race if he had no problems.
The battle for 2nd/3rd/4th/5th was on between JB, Vettel, Raikkonen, Webber and Hamilton with only two seconds between them! The finish would determine who looked after their tyre's the best.
It was Raikkonen that was in the most trouble, one moment he was battling for a podium, he then got challenged by Vettel and Webber successfully and it was all down hill, or off the cliff, for the flying fin as his tyre's had no more to give and he dropped down finishing in 14th, so disappointing, a result that maybe could have been avoided if Lotus pit him again.
Nico crossed the line taking his first win at a circuit he always achieves at, followed by Jenson Button. The battle for third went right down to the wire, Lewis Hamilton grabbed the last spot of the podium from Sebastian Vettel and Mark webber. Webber and Vettel were racing side-by-side, Mark just pitting Sebastian to the post taking 4th.
Now i strongly advise if you didn't watch the GP to go and catch up with the action - it was beautiful racing from start to finish, no crashes (only bumps), only one retirement (Schumi) due to a pit stop error, and it had tight, close racing up and down the field.
I done the race no justice because quite frankly it was just one of those races you need to watch to understand!
RACE RESULTS:
Fastest Lap: Kamui Kobayashi 1:39.960
Podium:
[1st-Nico Rosberg (and Norbert Haug), 2nd-Jenson Button, 3rd Lewis Hamilton]
Wasn't too long a long ago Nico and Lewis were racing in Karts together, now they are standing at the top of F1!
Gasp Moment:
Mark Webber giving any MotoGP rider a run for their money, wheelie two wheel style, proving Red Bull still have wings.
Congrats again to Nico and Mercedes, what a win!
Next Up:
Bahrain this weekend, a controversial race that will be going ahead despite safety fears of F1 personell.
We'll see what the lead up to the GP brings and the weekend itself. All we can hope for is a happy, safe sporting event.
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