Round 5: Spain

Justin:

Erm, wow. What an absolutely stonking race. Now, THAT's why I love F1.

Aggression Vs Defence = Crash, Bang, Wallop
Hamilton made a good start, getting the better of Rosberg, but then Nico caught a good tow and went around the outside at turn 1. A ballsy move, proving that he was ready to fight with Lewis in a one on one race. Then coming out of turn 3, Nico was a lot slower (which we later found was an engine mode issue...though I inferred at one point that it was a battery thing from Wolff's interview...anyway).

At first, after I'd finished jumping up and down and screaming at the TV, I thought it was possibly more Lewis at fault...or did I think anyone was really at fault? It looked to me like the overspeed had caught Lewis out a bit (though later he said he knew Nico had engine mode problems and that he had to go for the gap).

So, Lewis went aggressive and wanted to take advantage and pass there and then, Nico went defensive. Bang.

Nico was entitled to shut the door, in my opinion. Lewis is a racer and was going for a gap, but it was very much from the Senna school of "I'm coming through, don't you dare turn in, if you do, we crash!".

File under racing incident. The stewards and indeed Mercedes said no guy was 100% to blame. Judge for yourselves.

Of the two drivers, Rosberg looked slightly more annoyed in the post race interviews - See here a link to Channel 4 F1.

Hamilton seemed rather at peace with it all. I should point out that neither tripped up over the tricky interview questions. "Are you saying you weren't to blame?"......Nico replied "I didn't say that". Plus he said what was talked about in the de-brief stays private.

Lewis too was pretty fair and even handed in his answers.

Monaco next. That will lessen the tension for sure...

The race they left behind
It was an awesome race. 4 cars in with a shout of winning, near the end too, is somewhat of a rare sight in F1 these days.

I'm getting a bit annoyed with Vettel having a good old heat of the moment whinge when someone does something he doesn't like, such as try and overtake him - gasp! Then afterwards he admitted he said stuff in the heat of the moment when Ricciardo tried a bold pass into turn 1.

I think Ricciardo is completely correct to ask Red Bull why he was pulled in and changed to the slower three stop strategy, which seemingly released Max to victory on the two stop.

Congratulations to Max Verstappen though. He drove an absolutely flawless race and really has to be my driver of the day doesn't he?

We should spare a thought for Daniil Kvyat. I can't find the Channel 4 interview with him after the race, but boy did he look peeved.

Channel 4 coverage 
I was tweeting before the race started and noticed a few ney sayers regarding Steve Jones.

I like him as an F1 presenter. He works well with DC. And Susie and Alain were awesome today also.

People have short memories. It took Suzi Perry a while to hit her stride and she made a few errors in her first year. That's the nature of live TV.

I liked the Channel 4 nod to the fact that some people on the internet didn't like Jones much, when he was told by Susie to be a travel agent instead of an F1 presenter on their car journey to the track.

Steve is enthusiastic and happy to be there. To be fair, if I was presenting, it's probably not far off how I'd be. He's a bit of a fanboy. Anyone notice him touching Prost a lot during qualifying? Heehee.

Kudos to them bringing in Prost. That man is a legend. They also had to nearly cut him off from talking too long a few times. Hehehe.

The way they present too, is working well. Chopping and changing from one presenter to another, in a different part of the paddock. True, the BBC coverage did some of this, but C4 do it on another level.

To Monaco we go!!! The Mercedes boys will be trying to not touch each other at all.

PS - worth noting that Andrew Benson tweeted after qualifying that Alonso was right to leave his contract early, based on the fact he wouldnt have won any titles if he'd have seen it to the end of 2016. Bang on frankly. Ferrari were over a second behind the Mercedes duo.