The complete 2010 Spanish GP review

PRACTICE

Practice 1 - Friday AM

The Red Bulls were fastest in the early running as the weekend got underway, but by the end of the opening session it was a McLaren one-two, Lewis Hamilton leading Jenson Button.

Michael Schumacher announced his return to form with third, followed by the Red Bulls.

Williams had one revised car for Rubens Barrichello and a standard one for Nico Hulkenberg, but technical problems on both. Pedro de la Rosa was also in trouble, stopping with a gearbox issue before he could try a flying lap.

Two test drivers had a run out this week, with Paul di Resta on Force India duty as usual (this time instead of Adrian Sutil) and Hispania asking Karun Chandhok to step aside for its new signing Christien Klien. The Austrian was half a second faster than Bruno Senna, but pretty underwhelmed with the car.

Practice 2 - Friday PM

Red Bull showed its hand in second practice, Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber going first and second with a 0.7s margin over third-placed Schumacher. Fernando Alonso kept the home crowd happy in fourth.

McLaren felt it hadn't quite mastered the relatively cool temperatures, Hamilton taking fifth and Button only ninth. Nico Rosberg was having set-up issues too in seventh.

The session was stopped for a while after Hulkenberg crashed his Williams, while Jaime Alguersuari came to a smoky halt in the closing minutes.

Saturday Practice

Vettel and Webber dominated again the next morning. The Australian led the way at first, but it was his German team-mate who made the big gains at the end, and completed the hour 0.7s in front.

This session was also red-flagged, as moisture on the Turn 4 kerbs from overnight rain caught out both Kamui Kobayashi and Vitaly Petrov in very quick succession. The Sauber slewed deep into the gravel, while the Renault bounced down the tyre wall.

Less dramatic problems limited Bruno Senna and Tonio Liuzzi's mileage, the Hispania stuck in the garage with a leak for most of the session, and Liuzzi hitting a throttle issue and missing the final laps.

QUALIFYING

1. Mark Webber, Red Bull
Team-mate qualifying battle 2-3

Pole position could have really gone either way in the battle between Webber and Vettel, but it was the Australian who eventually managed the better lap. With the Red Bulls miles ahead of the opposition, the top spot looked set to prove crucial to the result of the race.

2. Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull
Team-mate qualifying battle 3-2

Vettel had to concede Webber was unbeatable on Saturday, despite the Australian finishing just a tenth ahead. That tenth, however, was too much for the German, who admitted there was nothing more he could have extracted from the car on his final run.

3. Lewis Hamilton, McLaren
Team-mate qualifying battle 2-3

Although things looked promising after Friday's first practice session, it didn't take long to see that McLaren, like everybody else, was not in a position to fight Red Bull in qualifying trim. Hamilton put on a solid effort nonetheless and secured the 'best of the rest' spot just ahead of Alonso.

4. Fernando Alonso, Ferrari
Team-mate qualifying battle 4-1

Despite all the updates, which included the now famous F-Duct, Ferrari had no chance to compete with the Red Bulls, so Alonso had to be happy with his position, despite being pipped by Hamilton at the last minute. The Spaniard was still hopeful his race pace would be strong enough to fight for the podium.

5. Jenson Button, McLaren
Team-mate qualifying battle 3-2

Button claimed he was not expecting to finish fifth after a difficult Friday, so he was still satisfied with his result despite the gap to the Red Bull. The world champion said a better position could have been possible, too, after going wide during his final run.

6. Michael Schumacher, Mercedes
Team-mate qualifying battle 1-4

The updated Mercedes car seemed to do the trick for Schumacher, who found his form and managed to outqualify Rosberg for the first time this season. The seven-time champion acknowledged the car was now very much to his liking but, finishing over a second off the Red Bull, he said there were hardly any reasons to be happy.

7. Robert Kubica, Renault
Team-mate qualifying battle 5-0

Considering Renault did not have a big update package like most of its rivals, it was no wonder that Kubica was left encouraged by his performance. The Pole continued with his flawless season and beat a Ferrari and a Mercedes in the meantime.

8. Nico Rosberg, Mercedes
Team-mate qualifying battle 4-1

Schumacher's gain seemed to be Rosberg's loss, as the young German failed to feel as comfortable as before inside the cockpit of his Mercedes. Despite accepting that the updated car was an improvement, Rosberg was unable to get it working properly when it mattered.

9. Felipe Massa, Ferrari
Team-mate qualifying battle 1-4

Massa was at a loss to explain his inability to get the Ferrari to his liking all weekend, and he struggled with the handling right from the start. The end result was finishing six tenths of a second off Alonso's pace.

10. Kamui Kobayashi, Sauber
Team-mate qualifying battle 3-2

Peter Sauber said his team had taken not one, but two steps forward in Barcelona following its poor start to the season. Kobayashi confirmed that, going into Q3 in perfectly normal conditions and on a track demanding for the aerodynamics of the car.

11. Adrian Sutil, Force India
Team-mate qualifying battle 5-0

Sutil was happy with his day, feeling the updates brought by his Force India team had worked well. The German believed he had a car capable going into Q3, but traffic on his final run meant he was unable to put the perfect lap together and so went out by a tiny margin.

12. Pedro de la Rosa, Sauber
Team-mate qualifying battle 2-3

Despite being outqualified by his team-mate and missing out on Q3, de la Rosa was very encouraged by his performance, feeling all the aero changes had translated into a significant improvement for his Sauber team. He was left upbeat for his first home race in years.

13. Nico Hulkenberg, Williams
Team-mate qualifying battle 2-3

There was not a lot more to extract from the Williams, so Hulkenberg was pleased with his showing, especially after qualifying five positions ahead of his team-mate. Thirteenth was nothing to be jumping for joy over, but a points finish was still on the cards.

14. Vitaly Petrov, Renault
Team-mate qualifying battle 0-5

The rookie was lucky to be able to take part in qualifying after damaging his car in a crash in final practice. A good job by his mechanics saw him join the grid-deciding session, but his chances of a good result were already compromised by a penalty for changing his car's gearbox after the accident, which would drop him to 19th later on.

15. Sebastien Buemi, Toro Rosso
Team-mate qualifying battle 4-1

Buemi felt a better position would have been possible, but the Swiss conceded he had failed to extract the maximum from his car. Traffic and a less than perfect lap meant the Toro Rosso driver missed on the top 12 by just a tenth of a second.

16. Jaime Alguersuari, Toro Rosso
Team-mate qualifying battle 1-4

The third Spaniard on the grid admitted he had to be happy with his position, as Toro Rosso did not have the kind of updates introduced by its rivals. Nonetheless, in his home race it was clear that Alguersuari would have wanted to beat his team-mate.

17. Vitantonio Liuzzi, Force India
Team-mate qualifying battle 0-5

The Italian faced a difficult qualifying after losing nearly all the final practice session because of a throttle problem. He was thus unable to find the right set-up for his car and struggled with the balance and a lack of grip in the grid-deciding session.

18. Rubens Barrichello, Williams
Team-mate qualifying battle 3-2

An unhappy Barrichello admitted the updates introduced by his Williams team in Spain were simply not working, so the British squad had to remove them. Apart from that, the Brazilian was unlucky with traffic, something that translated into his first Q1 exit of the season.

19. Jarno Trulli, Lotus
Team-mate qualifying battle 3-2

Although its positions did not change, Lotus did take a step forward in Spain thanks to the significant updates introduced in Barcelona. As it was, instead of being around three seconds off the pace of the established teams, Trulli was just 1.5s behind Barrichello. Still a long way to go, though.

20. Heikki Kovalainen, Lotus
Team-mate qualifying battle 2-3

It was very close between the two Lotus drivers all weekend, and Kovalainen ended up less than a tenth behind Trulli in qualifying. All in all a solid effort as the team edged clear of its closest opposition.

21. Timo Glock, Virgin
Team-mate qualifying battle 5-0

Despite having Virgin's only updated car for Barcelona, Glock was unable to show much progress compared to his rivals or his team-mate, whom he just outqualified. It seemed that Virgin still needs time to understand the longer-wheelbase car.

22. Lucas di Grassi, Virgin
Team-mate qualifying battle 0-5

It was a good effort for di Grassi who, despite not having the new Virgin car, finished less than a tenth off Glock's pace. The Brazilian was happy with his performance.

23. Karun Chandhok, HRT
Team-mate qualifying battle 2-3

With the recalcitrant HRT car, which had no performance-related updates for Spain, Chandhok could only hope to outpace his team-mate, and that he did. Expecting more than that on a track where downforce is vital would have been highly unrealistic.

24. Bruno Senna, HRT
Team-mate qualifying battle 3-2

There were hardly any reasons for the Brazilian to be happy after qualifying at the bottom of the times, behind team-mate Chandhok and just six tenths of a second quicker than the GP2 pole position time. It was a good reflection of how bad the the HRT currently is.

Qualifying results:
Pos  Driver         Team                   Q1        Q2        Q3            
 1.  Webber         Red Bull-Renault       1:21.412  1:20.655  1:19.995 
 2.  Vettel         Red Bull-Renault       1:21.680  1:20.772  1:20.101  
 3.  Hamilton       McLaren-Mercedes       1:21.723  1:21.415  1:20.829  
 4.  Alonso         Ferrari                1:21.957  1:21.549  1:20.937  
 5.  Button         McLaren-Mercedes       1:21.915  1:21.168  1:20.991  
 6.  Schumacher     Mercedes               1:22.528  1:21.557  1:21.294  
 7.  Kubica         Renault                1:22.488  1:21.599  1:21.353  
 8.  Rosberg        Mercedes               1:22.419  1:21.867  1:21.408  
 9.  Massa          Ferrari                1:22.564  1:21.841  1:21.585  
10.  Kobayashi      Sauber-Ferrari         1:22.577  1:21.725  1:21.984  
11.  Sutil          Force India-Mercedes   1:22.628  1:21.985    
12.  de la Rosa     Sauber-Ferrari         1:22.211  1:22.026    
13.  Hulkenberg     Williams-Cosworth      1:22.857  1:22.131    
14.  Petrov         Renault                1:22.976  1:22.139    
15.  Buemi          Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1:22.699  1:22.191    
16.  Alguersuari    Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1:22.593  1:22.207    
17.  Liuzzi         Force India-Mercedes   1:23.084  1:22.854    
18.  Barrichello    Williams-Cosworth      1:23.125
19.  Trulli         Lotus-Cosworth         1:24.674
20.  Kovalainen     Lotus-Cosworth         1:24.748
21.  Glock          Virgin-Cosworth        1:25.475
22.  di Grassi      Virgin-Cosworth        1:25.556
23.  Chandhok       HRT-Cosworth           1:26.750
24.  Senna          HRT-Cosworth           1:27.122

THE RACE

It was supposed to be a Red Bull walkover. The latest updates to Adrian Newey's RB6 had moved the team further ahead of its rivals than ever before on sheer qualifying speed, and even the closest of the chasing pack knew they were really in a fight for best of the rest come Sunday.

The general feeling was that this race could be written off as a spectacle if the Red Bulls made it to the first corner at the head of the field, with neutral onlookers willing at least one of the second row starters - Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso - to get in amongst them.

If it was a Red Bull 1-2 at the end of the first lap, then there was only the hope that Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel would go at it in their dominant cars, like Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost used to in 1988.

As it turned out, none of the above applied to the Spanish Grand Prix. But that didn't leave us a race without any intrigue. In fact, it was hardly the worst race the track has hosted over the years.

Webber had proved that he was the man at Red Bull this weekend with his qualifying performance, but he was naturally wary of the long run down to the first corner. Partly because Vettel had mugged him in a similar situation in Malaysia and gone on to win, and partly because Hamilton and Alonso would have a straightline speed advantage with their F-Ducts.

While there were instructions from Red Bull boss Christian Horner for the team's drivers not to do anything silly at the first corner, Webber was having none of it when Vettel went looking for a gap. As the blue cars jinked across the track they inadvertently fended off any advances from the lurking world champions behind them, and that was supposed to be the end of the excitement.

For Webber, essentially, it was. He carried his superiority from qualifying into the opening stint of the race, edging away from Vettel. Even when the German was instructed to switch his fuel mixture and use more revs, the lead continued to grow, which surprised even Webber.

"It was a bit of a surprise, but a pleasant one," said the winner. "Some laps I wasn't particularly happy, but the gap was still stretching so I thought Seb was having similar problems."

Vettel's struggles just added to the importance of Webber's stout defence at the start of the race.

"It was quite tight, but it was very important to get out of Turn 1 in the lead," said Webber. "We had a good battle, and then I just settled into a rhythm."

It was a rhythm that wouldn't be broken to the end. Even when Hamilton jumped Vettel in the stops and upped the pace, Webber responded, perhaps giving a glimpse of how much at least one of the Red Bulls was able to keep in its locker this weekend. Eventually it was enough to break Hamilton's charge, and Webber just had to bring it home.

As straightforward as the race was for one half of the Red Bull garage, the same couldn't be said for the other side. Vettel's afternoon started with a baffling lack of balance in the early stages, and then got a whole lot worse when his brakes started to give way in the final third of the race.

Considering those dramas, plus a trip through the gravel and an extra pitstop, a third place was essentially points gained rather than dropped in the end.

"It was a bit unknown why I lost so much in the beginning," said Vettel. "It was very difficult, it was a surprise all afternoon. Third with no brakes is not a disaster, but the result is a bit different to how it came together this weekend."

The battle for second behind Webber had been nip and tuck between Vettel and Hamilton early on, as McLaren proved that it is closer to Red Bull in race-spec than it can manage in qualifying. But while Hamilton was a nuisance, he was being kept under control, until the pitstops.

Vettel was delayed in his stop, and when Hamilton stopped a lap later he reached Turn 1 side-by-side with the German. Vettel tried to hang on, but Hamilton forced him wide, and it was surprising how easily the Briton seemed to hang on to the place after that.

But things were to get a lot worse for Vettel. On lap 53 he went bouncing through the gravel at Turn 7, and then nearly went off again at the end of the backstraight. He pitted, thinking his race was over, but was given a fresh set of tyres and sent on his way.

The team then worked out that his problem was serious brake degradation, and prepared a space in the garage to retire the car. But despite the huge risk of carrying on with braking power going to only three wheels, Vettel wanted to carry on.

"I've had brake failures in the past, so it was difficult," said the young German. "Every time I touched the brakes the car was pulling to the right and didn't stop properly. The lap after the pitstop I got the call to retire and I said: 'is there no chance to save some points?' I was telling the team I would love to try and keep racing, and it turned out that we finished on the podium."

Two factors played their part in enabling Vettel to salvage a top three finish. Firstly, Michael Schumacher jumped Jenson Button for fifth place during the pitstops. The German, struggling for pace despite having the edge over team-mate Nico Rosberg this weekend, held up the cars behind the lead group of the Red Bulls, Hamilton and Alonso.

That created a hole for Vettel to slip back into with his dramas. At that stage it seemed that fourth was on the cards, before he was gifted a position when Hamilton crashed in spectacular fashion at Turn 3 on the penultimate lap with a wheel rim failure.

It capped an ultimately disappointing race for McLaren, but there were positives to be taken. Even if he couldn't match Webber, Hamilton had clearly been in the same ballpark as the Red Bulls, which suggests that the Woking-based outfit has established itself ahead of Ferrari in the pecking order.

"To split the Red Bulls would have been perfect," said Hamilton. "I'm absolutely gutted that my accident happened so close to the finish, but I'll keep my chin up because I know we can still fight for this championship."

Hamilton's team-mate Button was equally buoyed by the pace of the car, but that made his fifth place finish all the more disappointing as he spent the second half of the race behind Schumacher.

The seven-time world champion was back in a fighting mood after a subdued start to his Formula 1 comeback, and his chop on Button as the McLaren rejoined the track at Turn 1 suggested that he's lost none of his ruthlessness. Button wasn't happy with that move, but then had no complaints as Schumacher was at his wily best to keep the faster car behind to the flag.

"If I hadn't backed out we would have probably crashed," said Button, who could take some small consolation from retaining his championship lead. "Then he was moving about a bit to make sure I couldn't get past. That was frustrating because the pace of my car was really good this afternoon. Fifth wasn't the result we deserved."

Schumacher could spend a bit less time looking in the mirrors as the race wore on, as Button's tyres began to struggle after running in the dirty air for so long. Hamilton's crash then promoted the Mercedes to fourth at the flag, but there were few smiles as Schumacher finished the race more than a minute adrift of the winner.

"The gap to the front is too big to be happy," said Schumacher. "We knew from the beginning that there would not be a chance for us to compete for a podium if everything goes as normal.

"It was an interesting fight with Jenson, but all I could do was try to not give him a possibility to overtake."

Rosberg's plight - exaggerated by getting shoved onto the grass at the start and a scrappy pitstop - just added to the lack of satisfaction at Mercedes.

Of the big four teams, Ferrari probably had the quietest afternoon. Fernando Alonso didn't quite have enough to fight the Red Bulls and Hamilton, but he was well clear of the rest. And when Vettel and Hamilton fell by the wayside, the Spanish crowd cheered their home hero on to second place as vociferously as they did when he won the race in 2006.

Further back, Felipe Massa was rescued from anonymity when Schumacher and Button began to fight, which slowed them enough to bring the Brazilian into play. But his challenge appeared to be over when he tagged the back of Karun Chandhok and damaged his front wing.

Alarmingly for Ferrari, the wing damage made no difference to Massa's pace. If anything he was quicker after the collision, which re-affirmed just how much trouble the 2008 world championship runner-up appears to be in at the moment.

"I can't be happy with the way things went - I never managed to run a constant pace," said Massa. "Once again the main difficulty was a lack of grip. We must work to improve the car's performance, there is no doubt about it. When the wing was broken, the handling of the car was not affected much."

Alonso was as relieved as he was surprised to bring home second, but he was aware that he shouldn't really have even made the podium after a quiet race that he described as 'so-so' after struggling to match the top three.

"On tracks like this we still don't have enough aerodynamic downforce to fight for pole position and the win," said the Spaniard. "But I am happy because I think we learned some things today, and we just need to do our maximum, which I think we did today."

The points were rounded out by Adrian Sutil, Robert Kubica, Rubens Barrichello and Jaime Alguersuari, as four different teams completed the top 10 behind drivers from the 'Big Four'.

Of those, Kubica was the most disappointed, as he rued a messy first lap which dropped him back down the order. He'd started well, but had a wobble in the first corner and then tagged Kamui Kobayashi's Sauber two turns later. Not only did that cost him places, but it damaged his front wing, making his pursuit of Sutil later in the race incredibly difficult.

Barrichello made up for the embarrassment of being the seventh car to be eliminated from Q1 along with the new teams by putting in a dogged performance. Most of his ground was made up by passing five cars on the first lap, and to salvage two points from a difficult weekend put a smile back on the Brazilian's face.

Alguersuari inherited the final point due to Hamilton's shunt, which made up in part for the drivethrough penalty he was given for clashing with Chandhok's HRT. The Indian was seriously disappointed after the Toro Rosso chopped across him as he tried to leave room for the young Spaniard, as it resulted in Chandhok retiring from the race.

Chandhok was taking the positives from his race as ever, feeling that he could keep the Virgin of Lucas di Grassi in check when he wasn't getting out of the way of the leaders.

As expected, the updated Lotus took the honours in the new teams battle, but some first lap damage to Jarno Trulli's car meant that Timo Glock's new Virgin was closer than expected for most of the afternoon.

Ahead of the new teams, Vitaly Petrov and Kamui Kobayashi narrowly missed out on points, but the fact that the Japanese driver was the highest Sauber finisher illustrated what a disastrous race his team endured after appearing to turn a corner with its car this weekend.

Both Kobayashi and Pedro de la Rosa had hit trouble by the time the race was three corners old, and from then on any hopes of a good result were gone.

At the front, the fight for the victory lasted about the same amount of time.

Race results:

The Spanish Grand Prix
Circuit de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain;
66 laps; 307.104km;
Weather: Dry.

Classified:

Pos  Driver        Team                       Time

 1.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault           1h35:44.101
 2.  Alonso        Ferrari                    +    24.065
 3.  Vettel        Red Bull-Renault           +    51.338
 4.  Schumacher    Mercedes                   +  1:02.195
 5.  Button        McLaren-Mercedes           +  1:03.728
 6.  Massa         Ferrari                    +  1:05.767
 7.  Sutil         Force India-Mercedes       +  1:12.941
 8.  Kubica        Renault                    +  1:13.677
 9.  Barrichello   Williams-Cosworth          +     1 lap
10.  Alguersuari   Toro Rosso-Ferrari         +     1 lap
11.  Petrov        Renault                    +     1 lap
12.  Kobayashi     Sauber-Ferrari             +     1 lap
13.  Rosberg       Mercedes                   +     1 lap
14.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes           +    2 laps
15.  Liuzzi        Force India-Mercedes       +    2 laps
16.  Hulkenberg    Williams-Cosworth          +    2 laps
17.  Trulli        Lotus-Cosworth             +    3 laps
18.  Glock         Virgin-Cosworth            +    3 laps
19.  Di Grassi     Virgin-Cosworth            +    4 laps

Fastest lap: Hamilton, 1:24.357

Not classified/retirements:

Driver        Team                         On lap
Buemi         Toro Rosso-Ferrari           43
Chandhok      HRT-Cosworth                 28
De la Rosa    Sauber-Ferrari               19
Senna         HRT-Cosworth                 1
Kovalainen    Lotus-Cosworth               1


World Championship standings, round 5:                

Drivers:                    Constructors:             
 1.  Button        70        1.  McLaren-Mercedes          119
 2.  Alonso        67        2.  Ferrari                   116
 3.  Vettel        60        3.  Red Bull-Renault          113
 4.  Webber        53        4.  Mercedes                   72
 5.  Rosberg       50        5.  Renault                    50
 6.  Hamilton      49        6.  Force India-Mercedes       24
 7.  Massa         49        7.  Williams-Cosworth           8
 8.  Kubica        44        8.  Toro Rosso-Ferrari          3
 9.  Schumacher    22       
10.  Sutil         16       
11.  Liuzzi         8       
12.  Barrichello    7       
13.  Petrov         6       
14.  Alguersuari    3       
15.  Hulkenberg     1         

Lap-by-lap as it happened on AUTOSPORT Live

TEAM BY TEAM

McLaren

First and second in first practice was deceptive, for by the afternoon neither McLaren driver was totally happy with their cars - Button in particular finding his set-up and the tyres were not getting on well in the cool temperatures.

Improvements for Saturday saw Hamilton beat Alonso to third on the grid, while Button rued a slight error as he took fifth.

Hamilton tried his utmost to split the Red Bulls off the line, failed to do so, then got ahead of Vettel in the pits - or more precisely the pit exit and Turn 1, where he determinedly held his ground as he rejoined, forcing the Red Bull wide. Second was then secure until a wheel rim issue caused his left front tyre to give away halfway round Turn 3 on the penultimate lap, causing a heavy accident.

Button ran fifth at first, but while Hamilton gained in the pits, he lost out to Schumacher in similar style. The rest of the afternoon was spent frustratedly trying to pass the much slower Mercedes. He ended up fifth thanks to Hamilton's crash.

Mercedes

The revised car was a step forward, but nowhere near enough to get on terms with the rapidly improving Red Bulls. Schumacher seemed happier and outpaced Rosberg all weekend for the first time.

They qualified sixth and eighth, with Schumacher managing to get ahead of Button for fifth in the pits and then doggedly fend off the McLaren and Massa to take fourth once Hamilton was out.

Rosberg went backwards, ending up on the grass at the start as he tried to pass Kubica, which plunged him into the midfield. A disastrous pitstop, which saw him dragged back so his right front wheel could be properly secured, put him even further back and he could only recover to 13th.

Red Bull

Total domination of practice two, practice three and qualifying should have translated to a one-two for Red Bull. But while Webber converted his brilliant pole to a crushing win, Vettel had a troubled Sunday.

Unable to keep up with his team-mate, he lost out in a physical battle with Hamilton following their pitstops, then suffered a severe brake problem late on, resulting in a gravel visit, an extra pitstop and then several laps of very, very gentle driving. Thanks to Schumacher's poor pace behind, he only lost one place with all this - and he gained that back when Hamilton crashed anyway.

Ferrari

Alonso couldn't give his home crowd a win, but they were still thrilled with second place from fourth on the grid and his return to a very close second in the championship, on a weekend when Ferrari did not have the pace of the leaders.

Massa underlined that by qualifying a mystified ninth. He made a good start and chased Schumacher and Button for most of the race, despite picking up some front wing damage when he ran into the back of Chandhok. Finally finished sixth.

A very bad start to the weekend as an upgrade package proved so disappointing it had to be removed, and Barrichello got caught in traffic and qualified only 18th, five places behind the reasonably contented Hulkenberg.

But Barrichello lifted the team's spirits in the race, as a stunning first lap thrust him up to 12th. Subsequent issues for Hamilton, Alguersuari and Rosberg meant that became ninth by the flag - although he backed off as his tyres began showing signs of 'issues' late on.

Hulkenberg ran close behind Barrichello at first, only to lose time in the second half of the race after running wide and slightly damaging his car, which left him only 16th in the end.

Kubica feared Renault might fall back as others introduced bigger upgrades, but in fact his seventh place on the grid was his best result in a dry session this year. He lost ground off the line though, then slightly damaged his front wing in a Turn 3 brush with Kobayashi. Nevertheless, he was able to get back into the points and hassle Sutil for seventh for most of the distance.

Petrov's weekend was compromised when he crashed heavily on Saturday morning. The repairs included a gearbox change, so his 14th on the grid became 19th when his penalty kicked in. But he too surged forward in the race and was 11th in the end, resisting pressure from Kobayashi.

Sutil missed out on Q3 for the first time all year but was still sure he could convert 11th on the grid into a good result. He was absolutely right, making great progress on the opening lap and then spending most of the distance chasing the Schumacher/Button/Massa battle while fending off Kubica. That brought him to seventh by the flag.

It was a poor weekend for Liuzzi, though. Ruing set-up time lost to throttle problems on Saturday, he was back in 17th on the grid and only progressed to 15th in the race.

Buemi beat local man Alguersuari in qualifying again as they had low-key runs to 15th and 16th.

There was little low-key about their races. Buemi's front wing was damaged in a startline brush with de la Rosa, he was later penalised for a pit exit issue, and eventually retired with hydraulic problems.

Alguersuari also had his troubles, but his race was more productive overall. An epic opening lap charge saw him thurst his way through to 10th, although he lost a couple of places with a wheelnut problem at his pitstop. A later tangle with Chandhok ended the Hispania's race and earned Alguersuari a penalty, but he still made it home in 10th to score another point.

Lotus was thrilled that its new update package had pulled it clear of the other new teams, and brought it a little closer to the rest of the field - now only 3s off the pace in Q1, and within 1.5s of a Williams. Trulli outqualified Kovalainen as they took 19th and 20th.

Pre-race gearbox problems meant Kovalainen didn't get chance to participate on Sunday, but Trulli made it to the finish in 17th, although he was frustrated that the car had been feeling steadily worse since Friday.

Newly-signed test driver Christian Klien tried the Hispania on Friday morning and found it below F1 standard, something regular drivers Chandhok and Senna wouldn't argue with.

Chandhok out-qualified Senna but a gearbox change penalty put the Indian to the back, and with the Virgins also receiving penalties, Senna actually found himself 21st on the grid.

Senna only lasted four corners before spinning into the gravel and out. Chandhok survived being punted by Massa, but was less fortunate when Alguersuari pulled across him while lapping the Hispania, which lost its front wing and also suffered what turned out to be race-ending suspension damage.

Finally a breakthrough on pace for Sauber, although getting results still proved tricky. The team was still delighted that Kobayashi was able to reach 10th on the grid, two places ahead of de la Rosa, who had missed most of first practice with gearbox problems.

Both cars were in trouble on the first lap: de la Rosa picking up a puncture in a brush with Buemi, and Kobayashi veering sideways at Turn 3 following contact with Kubica.

By the time de la Rosa had dragged his car back to the pits, the flailing rubber had sufficiently damaged the car's floor to ensure that his race soon ended, but Kobayashi kept going and got his first finish of the year, trapped behind Petrov in 12th.

Virgin had another tricky weekend, although at least both cars finished. Even before Glock and di Grassi took 21st and 22nd in qualifying, they knew they would get five place penalties as the team had not declared its gear ratios to the FIA in time.

In the race Glock managed to keep Trulli in sight for most of the afternoon, while di Grassi had a more lonely time, but they both made the finish in 18th and 19th.