Spanish GP: Lewis Hamilton denies Nico Rosberg in F1 thriller

The silver cars had more than a second per lap in hand over their rivals, so this was only ever going to be a proverbial two-horse race.

Hamilton nailed the start from pole position and held a slender lead through the early stages.

Erstwhile championship leader Rosberg attempted to outwit his team-mate with an alternative strategy, running three laps longer than Hamilton in the first stint and switching to Pirelli's hard tyre rather than taking another set of the mediums on which they both started.

Spanish GP reaction

Rosberg: I just needed one more lap

Raikkonen keen to 'clear up' tactics

Grosjean hampered by sensor issue

Vettel buoyed by charge to fourth

The race appeared to hinge on whether Rosberg could stay within a couple of seconds of Hamilton through his stint on the slower tyre, in order to jump him with an earlier final stop.

But Hamilton stayed out of reach and was four seconds up the road when Mercedes decided to pit him for the final time on lap 43 of 66.

That gave him track position for the final stint, but the penalty of 23 laps on the slower tyre, while Rosberg faced the prospect of trying to catch and pass his team-mate on-track with his final set of the quicker tyres.

Rosberg homed in as the leaders reeled off the laps, but fell short by just 0.6 seconds, which allowed Hamilton to leapfrog him in the title race and lead the championship table for the first time since he won the Canadian GP of 2012.

Behind the dominant Mercedes cars, Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo claimed his maiden podium finish in F1 by taking third.

The Williams of Valtteri Bottas held that place initially, after an excellent start from fourth on the grid, but was jumped at the first round of pitstops and was powerless to prevent the Red Bull of reigning champion Sebastian Vettel jumping him for fourth at Turn 10 in the closing stages.

The four-time world title winner produced a swashbuckling performance to climb from 15th on the grid and finish only one place behind his team-mate.

Red Bull pitted Vettel early to get him out of sequence with the rest, and the German made full use of an aggressive three-stop strategy to climb the order, producing some bolshy overtaking moves when required.

Spanish home hero Fernando Alonso used a similar three-stop strategy to beat Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen to sixth.

Raikkonen delivered his strongest performance of the season relative to his team-mate, but was powerless to prevent Alonso passing on fresher tyres in the late stages of the race, despite making it as difficult as he reasonably could.

Romain Grosjean delivered the first points of the season to the Lotus team by bringing the twin-tusk E22 home in eighth.

The Franco-Swiss driver started fifth and held that place early on, but gradually fell back as faster cars asserted their authority over the race distance.

The Force Indias of Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg claimed the final points on offer by jumping the sluggish McLaren of Jenson Button at the start and rounding out the top 10.

A three-stop strategy did not pay off for Felipe Massa, who started ninth but trailed home 13th behind the McLarens of Button and Kevin Magnussen.

Results - 66 laps:

Pos  Driver             Team/Car                  Time/Gap
 1.  Lewis Hamilton     Mercedes              1h41m05.155s
 2.  Nico Rosberg       Mercedes                   +0.636s
 3.  Daniel Ricciardo   Red Bull-Renault          +49.014s
 4.  Sebastian Vettel   Red Bull-Renault        +1m16.702s
 5.  Valtteri Bottas    Williams-Mercedes       +1m19.293s
 6.  Fernando Alonso    Ferrari                 +1m27.743s
 7.  Kimi Raikkonen     Ferrari                     +1 lap
 8.  Romain Grosjean    Lotus-Renault               +1 lap
 9.  Sergio Perez       Force India-Mercedes        +1 lap
10.  Nico Hulkenberg    Force India-Mercedes        +1 lap
11.  Jenson Button      McLaren-Mercedes            +1 lap
12.  Kevin Magnussen    McLaren-Mercedes            +1 lap
13.  Felipe Massa       Williams-Mercedes           +1 lap
14.  Daniil Kvyat       Toro Rosso-Renault          +1 lap
15.  Pastor Maldonado   Lotus-Renault               +1 lap
16.  Esteban Gutierrez  Sauber-Ferrari              +1 lap
17.  Adrian Sutil       Sauber-Ferrari              +1 lap
18.  Jules Bianchi      Marussia-Ferrari           +2 laps
19.  Max Chilton        Marussia-Ferrari           +2 laps
20.  Marcus Ericsson    Caterham-Renault           +2 laps

Retirements:

     Kamui Kobayashi    Caterham-Renault           34 laps
     Jean-Eric Vergne   Toro Rosso-Renault         24 laps

Drivers' championship:

Pos  Driver            Points
 1.  Lewis Hamilton    100
 2.  Nico Rosberg      97
 3.  Fernando Alonso   49
 4.  Sebastian Vettel  45
 5.  Daniel Ricciardo  39
 6.  Nico Hulkenberg   37
 7.  Valtteri Bottas   34
 8.  Jenson Button     23
 9.  Kevin Magnussen   20
10.  Sergio Perez      20
11.  Kimi Raikkonen    17
12.  Felipe Massa      12
13.  Romain Grosjean   4
14.  Jean-Eric Vergne  4
15.  Daniil Kvyat      4

Constructors' championship:

Pos  Team                  Points
 1.  Mercedes              197
 2.  Red Bull-Renault      84
 3.  Ferrari               66
 4.  Force India-Mercedes  57
 5.  Williams-Mercedes     46
 6.  McLaren-Mercedes      43
 7.  Toro Rosso-Renault    8
 8.  Lotus-Renault         4
 9.  Sauber-Ferrari        0
10.  Marussia-Ferrari      0
11.  Caterham-Renault      0