Spanish Grand Prix driver ratings

6 NICO ROSBERG
Mercedes F1 W06

Start: 1st
Finish: 1st
Strategy: 2 stops (medium/medium/hard)

Rating: 10

Rosberg desperately needed to turn the tables on his relentless team-mate and did so finally. He dominated qualifying and claimed his first pole position of 2015 on Saturday, after a clean run through free practice.

Rosberg finally had a victory to celebrate again © LAT

He then aced the start, and once Hamilton became hampered behind Vettel a ninth career win for Rosberg was almost a formality. A faultless performance from a driver who badly needed a big result.

44 LEWIS HAMILTON
Mercedes F1 W06

Start: 2nd
Finish: 2nd
Strategy: 3 stops (medium/medium/hard/medium)

Rating: 7

Mercedes reckons Hamilton is probably driving as well as ever, but he wasn't as strong here as across the first four races. He struggled to dial out oversteer in his W06 throughout Friday and Saturday and ended up behind his team-mate on the grid for the first time this year.

Hamilton's chances of challenging Rosberg evaporated after a poor start and a delay at the first pitstop, which forced him to race Vettel instead. He was second best this weekend.

3 DANIEL RICCIARDO
Red Bull-Renault RB11

Start: 10th
Finish: 7th
Strategy: 2 stops (medium/medium/hard)

Rating: 7

Red Bull brought substantial updates to Spain, but fears over engine mileage meant Ricciardo spent most of Friday in the garage and the car didn't work as well as hoped when he did run.

Kvyat had to fight back through the field after a poor start © XPB

He admitted to an error at Turn 10 that meant he qualified last in the top-10 shootout, but he wouldn't have beaten the Toro Rossos even with a perfect lap. On Sunday he capitalised on a bad race for Lotus and Toro Rosso to finish seventh.

26 DANIIL KVYAT
Red Bull-Renault RB11

Start: 8th
Finish: 10th
Strategy: 2 stops (medium/medium/hard)

Rating: 5

Kvyat finally enjoyed a clean Friday, but lost most of Saturday's final practice session to a water leak, so in the circumstances he did a decent job recovering to qualify eighth - although Ricciardo's sector times suggested seventh was possible.

He admitted to a "bad race" that included losing five places on the opening lap and getting bumped to 10th by Sainz at the end. Not one of his better grands prix.

19 FELIPE MASSA
Williams-Mercedes FW37

Start: 9th
Finish: 6th
Strategy: 3 stops (medium/medium/hard/medium)

Rating: 5

Massa showed a remarkable turn of speed over long runs on Friday, which raised expectations of a potential battle with Ferrari, but he was undone in qualifying by unnecessarily making two runs in Q2 and then going off at Turn 3 on his only run in Q3, which relegated him to ninth on the grid.

Bottas spent the final laps resisting a Ferrari again © XPB

He rose to sixth by lap four of the race, but wasn't quick enough to challenge Raikkonen so that was as good as it got.

77 VALTTERI BOTTAS
Williams-Mercedes FW37

Start: 4th
Finish: 4th
Strategy: 2 stops (medium/medium/hard)

Rating: 9

The team credited some small suspension and aero updates for its improved form at this race, while Bottas reckoned better understanding of how to work the medium tyre was crucial.

He qualified as high as could reasonably be expected and did well to split Vettel and Raikkonen in the race, in a car that has undoubtedly improved but is not yet at Ferrari's level.

5 SEBASTIAN VETTEL
Ferrari SF15-T

Start: 3rd
Finish: 3rd
Strategy: 2 stops (medium/medium/hard)

Rating: 8

Vettel hoped Ferrari's upgrades would bring him closer to Mercedes here, but it didn't work out that way. The gap to the silver cars in qualifying actually grew compared with recent races and Ferrari's long-run pace on Friday didn't look promising either.

Ferrari didn't have the pace to challenge Mercedes this time © XPB

He got the jump on Hamilton for the first half of the race, but the Ferrari simply wasn't fast enough to hang on once Mercedes went aggressive on strategy.

7 KIMI RAIKKONEN
Ferrari SF15-T

Start: 7th
Finish: 5th
Strategy: 2 stops (medium/hard/medium)

Rating: 5

Raikkonen struggled with the updated SF15-T and partially reverted to the Bahrain aero package. He couldn't get the car working in that spec either and qualified almost a full second slower than Vettel - which was not good enough really, regardless of the tyre-blanket malfunction that cost him an extra run in Q3.

A strong first lap brought him up to fifth in the race, but he couldn't pass Bottas despite being on the quicker tyre at the end.

14 FERNANDO ALONSO
McLaren-Honda MP4-30

Start: 13th
Finish: Retired
Strategy: (medium/hard/retired)

Rating: 7

More updates to the chassis, plus some small gains on the engine side, vaulted McLaren-Honda ahead of Sauber and Force India here, but it remained adrift of the rest.

Alonso's brake problem sent him shooting through the McLaren pit © XPB

Returning to the scene of the testing crash that sidelined him from the first race of the season, Alonso outqualified his team-mate but lost any hope of a decent finish in the race when his rear brakes failed shortly after his first pitstop.

22 JENSON BUTTON
McLaren-Honda MP4-30

Start: 14th
Finish: 16th
Strategy: 3 stops (medium/hard/medium/medium)

Rating: 6

After a disastrous outing in Bahrain last time, Button was keen to get back to business here. He was faster than Alonso on Friday, but felt some strange behaviour from fresh brakes fitted for qualifying and ended up behind his team-mate on Saturday.

The team fitted new material for the race, but Button spent most of it battling a "scary" throttle response that caused snap oversteer at every turn. Another race to forget.

11 SERGIO PEREZ
Force India-Mercedes VJM08

Start: 18th
Finish: 13th
Strategy: 2 stops (medium/hard/medium)

Rating: 7

Perez expected his team would struggle at this circuit, where downforce is king, and that proved to be the case as both Force Indias qualified slower than all bar the Manor/Marussias.

Hulkenberg made progress in the race but couldn't reach the points © LAT

The VJM08 was more competitive in race trim, though, and after getting ahead of team-mate Hulkenberg at the start, Perez executed a mammoth 30-lap final stint on the medium tyre to beat Marcus Ericsson's Sauber too.

27 NICO HULKENBERG
Force India-Mercedes VJM08

Start: 17th
Finish: 15th
Strategy: 3 stops (medium/medium/medium/hard)

Rating: 6

The Force India looked slow over a single lap on Friday, but Hulkenberg produced a remarkable long run that suggested the VJM08 would be much better in race trim. From 17th on the grid it looked a tall order to convert that potential into a decent result, though, and so it proved.

The team felt getting stuck behind Maldonado's hobbled Lotus ruined any (small) chance of three-stop strategy translating to a better result.

33 MAX VERSTAPPEN
Toro Rosso-Renault STR10

Start: 6th
Finish: 11th
Strategy: 2 stops (medium/hard/hard)

Rating: 6

Toro Rosso brought an updated floor and some other aero tweaks to the STR10 and both drivers looked confident from the word 'go'. Verstappen looked to have a small edge over his team-mate after the final practice session, but a "95 per cent" lap in Q3 left him a tenth adrift.

Toro Rosso qualified well then went backwards © LAT

He went backwards in the race thanks to overheating rear tyres, while a lock-up at the chicane with four laps to run helped team-mate Sainz bump him from the points.

55 CARLOS SAINZ JR
Toro Rosso-Renault STR10

Start: 5th
Finish: 9th
Strategy: 2 stops (medium/hard/medium)

Rating: 7

Sainz was happy to finally get the chance to race on a circuit he knows well and looked fast straightaway in free practice. He was slower than Verstappen thereafter until he put together a stunning lap on his only run in Q3 to qualify a career-best fifth in front of his home fans.

The race was less rewarding, but Sainz made good progress on the medium tyre in his final stint to make it back into the points.

8 ROMAIN GROSJEAN
Lotus-Mercedes E23

Start: 11th
Finish: 8th
Strategy: 2 stops (medium/medium/hard)

Rating: 6

Grosjean was up against it after sitting out FP1 in favour of Jolyon Palmer and then watching his engine cover fly off and destroy his car's rear bodywork in practice two.

Maldonado limped on with a broken rear wing after contact with Maldonado © LAT

He felt Lotus might struggle to stay ahead of Red Bull and Toro Rosso and wasn't even close to making Q3. The race should have been better after a strong start, but he went off at Turn 1, had contact with his team-mate, lost fourth gear and almost ran over the front jackman at his final stop.

13 PASTOR MALDONADO
Lotus-Mercedes E23

Start: 12th
Finish: Retired
Strategy: (medium/medium/hard/retired)

Rating: 6

Lotus lost a bit of relative pace here, as updates did not quite work as expected, while Maldonado wasn't happy with the balance of his E23 on Friday.

He pulled things together on Saturday to qualify within a tenth of his team-mate and had a strong start to the race, but rear-wing damage from an early collision with Grosjean scuppered his chances of points. Maldonado soldiered on until the team decided it wasn't worth it anymore.

28 WILL STEVENS
Marussia-Ferrari MR-04

Start: 19th
Finish: 17th
Strategy: 3 stops (medium/medium/hard/medium)

Rating: 7

Another solid weekend from the Brit, who exists in something of a no-man's land while the MR-04 is so uncompetitive and his team-mate continues to struggle.

Stevens continues to dominate the Manor battle at the back © LAT

Stevens could do with improving his starts, though, because he spent the first 12 laps bottled up behind Merhi. At the moment his pace advantage means that doesn't matter so much, but that won't be the case if and when the other side of the garage improves.

98 ROBERTO MERHI
Marussia-Ferrari MR-04

Start: 20th
Finish: 18th
Strategy: 3 stops (medium/medium/hard/medium)

Rating: 5

A disappointing season continues for a driver with decent junior single-seater pedigree. Merhi plugged away at the deficit to his team-mate and was within four tenths of Stevens on their first runs in Q1, but encountered an ERS "false alarm" on the weighbridge and couldn't make a second attempt.

He got ahead briefly in the race but couldn't stay there and flat-spotting his second set of tyres didn't help his vain chase thereafter.

9 MARCUS ERICSSON
Sauber-Ferrari C34

Start: 16th
Finish: 14th
Strategy: 2 stops (medium/medium/hard)

Rating: 5

Ericsson enjoys a decent record at this circuit from his GP2 days, but he was almost half a second slower than team-mate Nasr and failed to escape Q1 for the first time since Australia.

The Saubers scrapped with each other without scoring © XPB

He tracked his team-mate in the early stages of the race but lost time at his first pitstop and found it difficult to overcome traffic in his second stint. This proved crucial in a narrow defeat to Perez's Force India.

12 FELIPE NASR
Sauber-Ferrari C34

Start: 15th
Finish: 12th
Strategy: 2 stops (medium/medium/hard)

Rating: 7

Nasr felt a lack of updates would hold Sauber back here and struggled with overheating rear tyres throughout the weekend. He did an excellent job to split the McLarens in Q1, but the C34 mysteriously developed oversteer in Q2 and he dropped behind them as a result.

The Brazilian felt he did "everything possible" in climbing to 12th in the race, thanks to both McLarens and Maldonado hitting trouble. Points were not achievable without more attrition.