Pastor Maldonado converted pole after Lewis Hamilton's refuelling demotion, held off Alonso's late charge and gave Williams its first win since 2004.
Pastor Maldonado won the 2012 Spanish Grand Prix from pole, after Lewis Hamilton was sent to the back over a refuelling breach. Fernando Alonso was second for Ferrari and Kimi Raikkonen third for Lotus, in a race that gave Williams its first win since 2004.
Pastor Maldonado won the 2012 Spanish Grand Prix for Williams on 13 May, starting from pole after Lewis Hamilton was demoted for a refuelling breach. Fernando Alonso finished second for Ferrari, and Kimi Raikkonen took third for Lotus. It was Maldonado's first and only Formula One victory, and Williams' first win since 2004.
What was the 2012 Spanish Grand Prix?
The race was round five of the 2012 season and the 22nd Spanish race staged at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo, about 25 km (16 mi) north of Barcelona. A crowd of 82,000 attended the 66-lap event. It came three weeks after the Bahrain race, and Maldonado made it five different winners in five rounds, as four different drivers had won the first four.
The circuit is a 16-turn layout measuring 4.655 km (2.892 mi). Organisers made several changes for the weekend, including a single DRS zone on the straight that links the final and first corners. A strip of artificial grass, 1 m (3.3 ft) deep, was laid on the verge at turn three, and the exit kerb at turn five was lengthened by 50 m (160 ft).
A penalty put Maldonado on pole, and a clean stint on the hard tyres gave Williams its first win since 2004.
What was the championship picture before the race?
Sebastian Vettel led the drivers' table into Spain with 53 points, ahead of Lewis Hamilton and Mark Webber. Red Bull led the constructors with 101 points, followed by McLaren on 92 and Lotus on 57. The championship had been unsettled, and Red Bull team principal Christian Horner argued that steady scoring would decide the title more than individual wins.
Alonso had won in Malaysia, but he had finished no higher than seventh in the two races that followed, which left him ten points behind Vettel. He hoped car upgrades would help him in Spain, though he was not confident. Raikkonen, second in Bahrain, said winning in Spain was the target for him and the team. Hamilton expected passing to be difficult at the circuit, but he hoped DRS and the hybrid KERS system would make it a little easier.
How did tyres and testing shape the weekend?
Pirelli was in its second season in Formula One and brought the yellow-banded soft and silver-banded hard dry compounds. Whitmarsh of McLaren and Mercedes' Schumacher both attacked the extreme sensitivity of the tyres, and they brought a different set to demonstrate a difference in performance and durability.
Ahead of the weekend, teams spent 1 to 3 May testing at the Mugello Circuit in Italy, checking upgrades and tyre behaviour. Alonso was fastest on the first day on a drying track. On the second day Grosjean of Lotus and Kobayashi of Sauber matched each other's lap time exactly, and Vettel's best came on the final morning. The HRT team skipped the test to concentrate on its new headquarters at the Caja Magica in Madrid.
Who was in the field?
The entry list was unchanged, with twelve teams on the grid. Four drivers were changed for the first practice session. Dani Clos drove the HRT F112 of Narain Karthikeyan in an official session for the first time, and Alexander Rossi raced Heikki Kovalainen's Caterham CT01. Rossi was the first American to take part in a Formula One weekend since Scott Speed in 2007.
Valtteri Bottas, the 2011 GP3 champion, drove Bruno Senna's Williams, and Jules Bianchi replaced Paul di Resta at Force India. Those substitutions gave the field a few unfamiliar faces before the lights went out.
How did the practice sessions go?
The season's regulations included three practice sessions, two of 90 minutes on Friday and one of 60 minutes on Saturday morning. Alonso set the fastest time of the first session, 1:24.430, with 21 minutes remaining, although Vettel led for 15 minutes. Pedro de la Rosa's HRT struck the ground while braking for turn one, and Clos halted with a mechanical problem.
Conditions warmed in the Friday afternoon session, and Button set the day's fastest lap, 1:23.399, on soft tyres, despite driving with chronic understeer. Vettel was second, Nico Rosberg third and Hamilton fourth. Webber carried excess speed onto the turn four gravel trap, and stones stuck to the floor of his RB8. Sergio Perez went off at the same corner in his Sauber.
On Saturday morning Vettel set the fastest time, 1:23.168 on soft tyres, with Maldonado second and Kobayashi third. Grosjean's car lost fuel pressure and stalled at turn ten, ending his session early. Stewards summoned Schumacher and Hamilton about an incident at turn 13, and Schumacher was reprimanded after the stewards judged it minor.
How did qualifying play out?
Saturday's qualifying had three segments. The first lasted 20 minutes and removed the cars finishing 18th or lower. The second, 15 minutes long, removed those placed 11th to 17th, and the final ten-minute session decided pole through to tenth. Cars in the final session had to start on the tyres used for their quickest laps. Conditions were warm and dry, and the track gained roughly eight-tenths of a second per lap, against the usual three-tenths.
Hamilton ran two timed laps and edged out Alonso and Maldonado, setting 1:21.707. It was his third pole of 2012 and his 22nd in his career, and it was McLaren's 150th pole in Formula One. Maldonado, fastest in the second segment, was second on the provisional grid, and Alonso took third. Grosjean was fourth, using a setup Lotus had learned the day before, and Raikkonen fifth.
Perez was the faster Sauber in sixth, with Rosberg seventh. Vettel and Schumacher skipped full laps in the last segment to conserve tyres. Kobayashi finished tenth after a hydraulic leak on the way to the pits.
Button was the fastest driver to miss the final segment, after his car understeered and McLaren changed its front wing angle. Webber was told not to make a second timed lap, and he qualified 12th. Massa, 17th, recorded his lowest grid slot since the 2010 Singapore Grand Prix because of traffic. Petrov qualified 19th, ahead of Kovalainen in 20th, and Charles Pic beat Timo Glock by four-tenths of a second.
Why was Hamilton sent to the back?
After his last timed lap, Hamilton had to stop on the way to the pits because he did not have enough fuel to provide the FIA with a sample. The refuelling mechanic had mistakenly turned a switch that drained the car rather than adding fuel. The FIA technical delegate reported the irregularity to the stewards.
McLaren technical director Sam Michael argued that force majeure had caused the stop, but the stewards rejected the argument. They found the team had broken the rules requiring a sample of one litre (0.22 imp gal; 0.26 US gal) when drivers returned to the pit lane. Hamilton was ordered to the back, and every driver behind him gained a place. That gave Maldonado the first pole of his career and handed Williams its first pole since the 2010 Brazilian Grand Prix.
Karthikeyan, who had failed to meet the 107 percent limit in the first session, was allowed to start after lapping within the limit in the third practice session.
How did the race start?
The race began at 14:00 local time under an overcast sky, after a thunderstorm overnight. The air was 22 to 23 degrees C and the track was 32 to 35 degrees C, with rain in the forecast. Every driver started on the soft tyres, and tyre wear suggested three stops would be the norm, rather than the four seen in 2011.
Maldonado's clutch slipped at the start, and he turned right to block Alonso. Alonso kept accelerating, pushed Maldonado onto the grass and passed him on the inside into the first corner. Perez and Grosjean collided, puncturing Perez's rear-left tyre, and Perez still controlled the car. At the end of the opening lap Alonso was 1.3 seconds clear of Maldonado, and Raikkonen was third, Rosberg fourth and Grosjean fifth.
Maldonado then trailed Alonso for several laps, staying back to avoid the Ferrari's turbulence and to learn where his car stood against it. Alonso could not pull away, and he reported left-rear tyre wear on lap six.
How did Maldonado control the early race?
Webber made the first scheduled stop on lap seven, switching to hard tyres to try to pass Massa out of the Ferrari's turbulence. Vettel followed on lap eight and rejoined 18th. Hamilton forced Hulkenberg into an error at turn nine on lap nine, moving up to 11th.
Alonso stopped after the tenth lap and rejoined third, and Maldonado took the lead. Maldonado made his first stop at the end of the eleventh lap, with Raikkonen second. Alonso retook first, and the two drivers left the pit lane in second and third on hard and soft tyres. Lotus kept Raikkonen and Grosjean on used soft tyres because it expected a bigger lap-time gap between hard and soft compounds.
Williams' Mark Barnett asked Maldonado to make a second stop on lap 25, after Maldonado had cut the deficit from 2.3 seconds to 1.5 seconds. Barnett calculated that Maldonado could run 42 laps on his tyres and make another stop without losing speed. Maldonado rejoined third, eight seconds behind Raikkonen.
What were the collisions and penalties?
On lap 12 Rosberg passed Senna, and Grosjean moved to the outside of Senna at the first corner. The two collided, removing part of Grosjean's front wing. On the next lap Schumacher tried to close on Senna and struck the back of his car after a late move, and Schumacher's car was left in the gravel.
Hamilton had a difficult stop on lap 15, when he hit a detached left-rear tyre as he left his pit box, which lifted his car and dropped him to 14th. Webber lost front load on lap 17, dropping from ninth to 14th, and he pitted for a new front wing. Massa and Vettel were given drive-through penalties on lap 28 for ignoring yellow flags for Schumacher's stricken car, and Vettel fell from sixth to ninth.
Pic retired in the garage on lap 37 with driveshaft failure, having been penalised for disregarding blue flags. Perez retired with a transmission fault on lap 40.
How did the final laps decide the race?
On lap 32 Maldonado received a message to look after his rear tyres while protecting a seven-second gap over Alonso. Alonso stayed seven seconds behind to avoid overstressing his own tyres. Hamilton made his last stop on lap thirty-six for hard tyres, and he rejoined in heavy traffic in 14th.
When Alonso began closing by half a second a lap, Barnett called Maldonado in at the end of lap 41. The rear-left wheel was hard to install, and Maldonado was stationary for longer than expected, which dropped him to third behind Alonso and Raikkonen. Vettel suffered front wing damage on lap 43 and pitted for new tyres and a new front wing, falling to 10th.
Maldonado closed on Raikkonen, who was still on his old stop, and Alonso caught up in the process. Alonso made his final stop on lap 45, and Raikkonen led for two laps before Maldonado passed him with DRS into the first corner on lap 47. On the next lap Alonso used his own DRS to get past Raikkonen and move into second.
Raikkonen made his final stop on lap 49 for hard tyres, hoping to force Maldonado and Alonso past the life of their tyres. He rejoined fourth, 22 seconds behind Alonso. Grosjean pitted from fourth on lap 52 and handed third to Raikkonen. The gap between Maldonado and Alonso oscillated between 1.3 and 0.6 seconds for six laps, but Raikkonen could not catch them before the flag.
Vettel passed Button on the inside at turn ten on lap fifty-nine for eighth, and Kobayashi passed Rosberg for fifth after a collision. Maldonado's gap grew past three seconds after Alonso lost rear grip, which slowed him, with nine laps remaining.
| Position | Driver | Team |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pastor Maldonado | Williams |
| 2 | Fernando Alonso | Ferrari |
| 3 | Kimi Raikkonen | Lotus |
| 4 | Romain Grosjean | Lotus |
| 5 | Kamui Kobayashi | Sauber |
| 6 | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull |
| 7 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes |
| 8 | Lewis Hamilton | McLaren |
| 9 | Jenson Button | McLaren |
| Tenth | Nico Hulkenberg | Force India |
Maldonado won by more than three seconds at the flag. Alonso finished 3.2 seconds behind, and Raikkonen was within 0.7 seconds of Alonso at the finish. Webber was 11th after failing to pass Hulkenberg in the final laps.
What did the result mean for Williams?
The victory was Williams' first in 130 Grand Prix starts and its first since Montoya's 2004 Brazilian Grand Prix victory. Maldonado was the fifth different winner in the season's first five races. He remains Venezuela's only Formula One winner, which made the result a national event there.
The standings shifted after Spain. Vettel and Alonso shared the drivers' lead on 61 points each, and Hamilton slipped to third on 53. Raikkonen rose from seventh to fourth on 49, and Webber dropped to fifth on 48 after failing to score. Red Bull kept the constructors' lead on 109 points, ahead of McLaren on 98 and Lotus on 84, with 15 races left.
How did the drivers and teams react?
Maldonado called the day a wonderful one and a sign of how far the team had come. He said the tyres had been hard to manage, but the car had been competitive from the first lap. Alonso admitted to disappointment and blamed the penalty his team had paid for Pic's interference, while Raikkonen said ten more laps might have given him the win.
Victory was celebrated widely in Venezuela. Residents of Caracas unfurled banners and blasted their horns, and Venezuela's president Hugo Chavez, a friend of Maldonado's, telephoned him that evening. Toto Wolff, a Williams board member, said the performance silenced critics who had called Maldonado a pay driver and that his earlier crash at the Australian Grand Prix had helped sharpen him.
Conspiracy theories soon claimed that Williams had used performance-enhancing tyres to give team owner Frank Williams a victory a month past his 70th birthday. Team consultant Alexander Wurz rejected the idea, pointing out that he and chief designer Ed Wood had worked out how to heat the front tyre to solve an airflow cooling problem.
The stewards investigated Schumacher and Senna's lap 13 collision and held Schumacher wholly responsible. He was given a five-place grid penalty for the next Monaco race. Schumacher said Senna had turned right before steering left under braking, but Senna denied it and said he had turned left expecting Schumacher to be on the inside.
Hamilton was pleased that McLaren had improved his car and that he had managed his tyres with just two stops, saying he was the only driver to do so. Grosjean said he struggled with front wing damage from the first lap, and Rosberg was puzzled when a tyre management problem at Mercedes slowed him.
What happened at the Williams garage?
Roughly 90 minutes after the race, once the celebrations had finished, the Williams garage caught fire and smoke poured out of both ends. Pit crews from Williams, Force India and Caterham brought the blaze under control. Burns and smoke inhalation injured thirty-one people, and seven were taken to local hospitals. All of them were later released.
Early reports suggested fuel had exploded during preparation for a standard post-race check. Photographs showed that Senna's car was the origin, with fuel leaking from the rig used to drain it. Other accounts pointed to a spark from the KERS unit. Senna's FW34 was damaged, and Maldonado's car was elsewhere at that moment.
Other teams lent replacement equipment to Williams for Monaco, and the team changed its fuel handling safety procedures. Maldonado was reported to have pulled his twelve-year-old cousin Manuel out of the blaze.
