Soft tyres on the front and hards on the rear? Could they even do that?
No idea what happened there, but a shame that Senna didn't manage to finish the race.
And congratulations to Maldonado. If I'm not mistaken, in these 5 races we've gotten more new race winners than in the whole 3 last years (2009, 2010, 2011). It's a good signal. Also, excelent race from Fernando Alonso, but the Ferrari isn't quite there. They have closed the gap though, and that's always good, but if the race had been 1 lap longer Räikkönen would have taken 2nd for sure, and Massa without the penalty might have been in the points.
The Lotus were slightly dissapointing, lacking the pace at the beginning, but they are still strong competitors and I'm sure they'll win races this season. Also, I don't think Red Bull were slow. Vettel had a drive through penalty, and I believe both cars had to change the front wing which made them lose quite some time. Great for Kobayashi too, a strong drive and some banzai moves (the overtake on Button was on the limit). Sergio Pérez got hit in the first lap (nice car control with a flat tyre there) and had to retire because of the gearbox, but it would have been nice to see where he could have ended. As for Mercedes, a 7th for Rosberg is less than expected, and Schumacher made a very dumb mistake.
Hamilton was a surprise though. A 2 stop strategy, you could expect from Button, but Hamilton pushed his tyres very hard and still managed to use only 3 sets, that's impressive. Did he start on the used softs from the qualifying? Button had problems the whole weekend, he also had them in Bahrein. I hope he can solve them soon and come back to the fight for the top positions.
I'll say though, this was a fairly boring race compared with the rest of the season. Montmelo isn't exactly the nicest track for overtakes, and these tyres don't allow to keep attacking, which kills the racing a bit. Still, there were a few nice ones, and it's promising for the next races. Now, next one is Monaco, so I'll probably sleep on that one
