Four in a row for Hamilton as Mercedes reign in Spain

Lewis makes it four in a row as he takes victory in Barcelona to take the lead in the world drivers' championship.

Following another blistering lap in Saturdays Qualifying Lewis Hamilton started on pole position once again with his team-mate Nico Rosberg starting alongside him.

Hamilton made an excellent start ensuring there would be no inch given to Rosberg from the off. The pack made their way round the first lap unscathed, which seems a rarity for modern day F1. An early battle ensued between the Ferraris with Raikkonen defending well from Alonso.

Kevin Magnussen was the first car to encounter issues when he bounced across several curbs. On team radio he seemed concerned that he may have caused damage to his McLaren. Other drivers in the wars early on were Maldonado and Ericsson. Maldonado trying a bullish move on the Caterham resulting in contact which gave the Lotus driver a penalty

Bottas who continues to impress was running in 3rd in the early going, with the Red Bull of Ricciardo all over the back of him. Defending world champion Vettel began to make his way through the field after starting a lowly 15th on the grid due to gearbox failure and a 5 place grid penalty for the resulting gearbox change.

The gap at the front remained consistent, with Hamilton leading Rosbeg by 2 seconds, but the gap to the rest of the field was becoming stretched lap by lap as the Mercedes' drivers traded fastest laps to try and gain a psychological edge over one another.

With little overtaking on track it seemed pit stops were going to play a key role in how the race played out. The first of the stops came from Red Bulls as both drivers pitted within laps of each other. The rest of the field began to follow suit and a poor pit stop from the Mercedes team for Hamilton seemingly gave Rosberg the advantage. Hamilton responded however with the fastest lap of the race and Rosberg stayed out 1 lap too many handing advantage back to the Englishman.

The Red Bull strategy seemingly worked as during the pit window Ricciardo managed to jump Bottas and moved up into 3rd.

The first retirement of the race came on lap 24 with Vergne told he has an exhaust problem. He drove straight into the garage to end his terrible race weekend.

The Ferraris who were still tight together on track, made light work of Grosjean in the Lotus and made their way up into 5th and 6th.

The battle for the lead seemed to be intensifying as Hamilton was told he needs to stretch the gap to 6 seconds for the next stop. Rosberg told to close the gap to 2 seconds as he would be on the quicker medium compound in the final phase. Hamilton responded asking the team for help to manage oversteer he was getting.

Vettel, now up to 8th by this point, was showing an improvement to the Red Bull’s weekend. They clearly are the closest team to the Mercedes in terms of performance, but still some way off.

Lap 39 saw the end of Kobayashi's race as a brake failure resulted in him overshooting turn one and subsequently retiring from the grand prix.

As the third round of pit-stops began, we saw another slow stop for Hamilton but he once again managed to hold onto a lead of 4.6 seconds to Rosberg.

The rest of the field, now seemingly taking shape saw Ricciardo in 3rd, Alonso up to 4th but yet to pit as was Vettel who was improving each lap to run in 5th, Bottas 6th and Raikkonen 7th.

As we entered crunch time in the race Rosberg was gaining as each lap passed and had closed the gap to a mere 2 seconds as the entered 5 to go.

Alonso and Vettel finally came in for new tyres. Vettel seemed to thrive on the new set closing in on Bottas at a rate of 1 second per lap.

As we entered the last couple of laps Rosberg was now just 0.6 seconds behind Hamilton and looking for any potential weakness in his team-mate to make an overtake. An issue for Hamilton was that the Mercedes were now closing to lap both Ferrari drivers who were comfortably positioned in 6th and 7th.

Vettel by now had caught and passed Bottas and was running in a brilliant 4th following his disastrous Saturday qualifying.

The final lap of the race saw Rosberg looking for any possible way passed Hamilton but the Englishman made no mistakes and took the chequered flag for his 4th win from 5 races this season and take the lead in the Drivers Championship for the first time this year.

Thanks again to Graham and Leigh www.grahamandleigh.co.uk for supplying laser cut circuit

Spanish Grand Prix 2014 Final Race results;

1) Hamilton
2) Rosberg
3) Ricciardo
4) Vettel
5) Bottas
6) Alonso
7) Raikkonen
8) Grosjean
9) Perez
10) Hulkenberg
11) Button
12) Magnussen
13) Massa
14) Kvyat
15) Maldonado
16) Gutierrez
17) Sutil
18) Bianchi
19) Chilton
20) Ericsson
DNF; Vergne, Kobayashi

2014 Driver World Championship standings;

1) Hamilton 100
2) Rosberg 97
3) Alonso 49
4) Vettel 45
5) Ricciardo 39
6) Hulkenberg 37
7) Bottas 34
8) Button 23
9) Magnussen 20
10) Perez 20
11) Raikkonen 17
12) Massa 12
13) Grosjean 4
14) Vergne 4
15) Kvyat 4
16) Sutil 0
17) Gutierrez 0
18) Chilton 0
19) Kobayashi 0
20) Maldonado 0
21) Bianchi 0
22) Ericsson 0

The next race in Monaco may well suit some of the other driver Combinations, but we will be reporting on Practice & the race throughout the weekend