1 The title fight is alive and well
Just as we prepared to write off Nico Rosberg’s chances the Mercedes driver pieced together the perfect weekend, watched by his wife Vivian for the first time this season. Lewis Hamilton still leads by 20 points and is the strong favourite to take the title again but he will want to win in Monaco next week to prevent the German developing momentum. It was at this time last year that Rosberg found his form both in qualifying and on race day.
2. McLaren still have a mountain to climb
The Woking team, with upgrades in place, were hoping to make progress at the Circuit de Catalunya after their wretched start to the season but the Spanish Grand Prix was another dismal race for the team, with Jenson Button trailing home in 16th and Fernando Alonso not finishing at all because of brake problems. “The rear felt like it wasn’t connected to the front,” Jenson Button said afterwards, which was not very encouraging. And Fernando Alonso shrugged: “We are a long way off and we need to make double steps because everyone else is improving.”
3. It’s not just the Renault engine that is the problem at Red Bull
“We need to improve the car in every area at the moment,” Daniil Kvyat said after Sunday’s race. Toro Rosso lacked pace on Sunday but until then Red Bull’s junior partner appeared to have the better car and were clearly quicker during Saturday’s qualifying session. At least Red Bull brought both cars home, suggesting they are getting their heads round their reliability problems. With their resources they should be able to out-develop Williams before the season is much older, but the problems run deep.
4. Fears grow for the Spanish GP
The long-term prospects for the Circuit de Catalunya are worrying, even though the immediate future of the Barcelona track is not in doubt, with a new deal announced at the weekend which will guarantee the race until 2019. But by then Fernando Alonso will not be around and it is already clear that the Spaniard’s lack of competiveness is hurting the occasion. The official attendance figure for race day was 86,700. No one really believes that because there were so many empty seats everywhere. But even if the figure is true it represents a drop of 5,000 on 2014.
5. Safety is at the top of the agenda
The FIA, Formula One’s ruling body, is to set up a database for motorsport accidents all over the world. The organisation has conducted a two-year experiment with eight countries and is now making the database available to 139 national motorsport governing bodies. The FIA president, Jean Todt, said: “The introduction of the database will open up an opportunity for the world of motorsport to provide detailed information on any serious accidents that occur. A significant number of the major safety improvements made throughout motorsport have been predicated by fatal or serious accidents.”
