Spanish Grand Prix: Hamilton fends off Rosberg as Mercedes assert supremacy

Lewis Hamilton leads Nico Rosberg during the race

Lewis Hamilton scored his fourth win in a row with victory at the Spanish Grand Prix and with it took command of the 2014 Formula 1 World Championship standings, but had to pull out all the stops to keep his Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg at bay in the final tense laps at Circuit de Barcelona Catelunya.
The lap chart will show that apart from a brief period when he pitted, Hamilton led from start to finish suggesting an easy passage to victor. But this was not so as Rosberg kept him honest throughout the 66 laps, their strategies differing only with different tyre choices on their final two stints.
At a certain point Hamilton enjoyed a lead of around five seconds, but in the final stint Rosberg reeled in his Silver Arows teammate and looked set to steal victory in the final laps as he was well within the DRS zone. However Hamilton, who appeared less comfortable on his final set of tyres, defended admirably to cross the line a mere half second ahead of Rosberg.

It was the fourth successive Mercedes one-two of the season thus far, and the fifth win in five races for the dominant German constructor.

Hamilton now has 100 points to Rosberg’s 97 after his 26th career victory and leads the Formula 1 points standings for the first time since 2012.

On the day Mercedes enjoyed the kind of supremacy that even Red Bull did not enjoy in their four year reign at the top of the F1 pile, the gap of 49 seconds to third placed Daniel Ricciardo a testament to their advantage.
The Australian once again beat his Red Bull team mate Sebastian Vettel, although the world champion turned 15th place on the grid to fourth place when the chequered flag dropped.
Report in progress…

Spanish Grand Prix, Circuit de Barcelona Catalunya – Sunday, 11 May 2014

Pos	No	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Grid	Pts
1	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	66	Winner	1	25
2	6	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	66	+0.6 secs	2	18
3	3	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing-Renault	66	+49.0 secs	3	15
4	1	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Racing-Renault	66	+76.7 secs	15	12
5	77	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Mercedes	66	+79.2 secs	4	10
6	14	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	66	+87.7 secs	7	8
7	7	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	65	+1 Lap	6	6
8	8	Romain Grosjean	Lotus-Renault	65	+1 Lap	5	4
9	11	Sergio Perez	Force India-Mercedes	65	+1 Lap	11	2
10	27	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India-Mercedes	65	+1 Lap	10	1
11	22	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	65	+1 Lap	8
12	20	Kevin Magnussen	McLaren-Mercedes	65	+1 Lap	14
13	19	Felipe Massa	Williams-Mercedes	65	+1 Lap	9
14	26	Daniil Kvyat	STR-Renault	65	+1 Lap	12
15	13	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus-Renault	65	+1 Lap	22
16	21	Esteban Gutierrez	Sauber-Ferrari	65	+1 Lap	13
17	99	Adrian Sutil	Sauber-Ferrari	65	+1 Lap	16
18	17	Jules Bianchi	Marussia-Ferrari	64	+2 Laps	18
19	4	Max Chilton	Marussia-Ferrari	64	+2 Laps	17
20	9	Marcus Ericsson	Caterham-Renault	64	+2 Lap	19
Ret	10	Kamui Kobayashi	Caterham-Renault	34	+32 Laps	20
Ret	25	Jean-Eric Vergne	STR-Renault	24	+42 Laps	21