Spanish GP Analysis - And then there were five

Pastor Maldonado had been quick throughout final practice and qualifying, but few seriously expected him to win the Spanish Grand Prix. Those in the know were tipping Lotus for glory and the black and gold cars did ultimately prove quickest, just not - critically - over 66 laps. Instead Maldonado defied his critics - of whom there have been plenty since he entered F1 - with a faultless maiden victory. In a superbly balanced Williams FW34, the Venezuelan kept his cool after losing the lead to Fernando Alonso at the start of the race and then withstanding huge pressure from the Ferrari near its end.

The surprise sleeper

Nobody would have predicted pole position and a victory for Pastor Maldonado, except perhaps the man himself. In a moment of prescience, Maldonado said on Thursday: "Personally I've been concentrating on improving for qualifying, because starting from the back it's always difficult to overtake, it's always difficult to make a good strategy because of the traffic and because of many things. Personally I want to start from the front and to do a good race. I think we have the pace to be competitive and to fight for a good place." Turns out he was right.

Schumi's unluckiest season yet?

It wasn't Michael Schumacher's most successful weekend. In the race he slammed in to the back of Bruno Senna having misjudged the braking point of the Williams and then proceeded to call Senna an "idiot". The stewards - and most observers - didn't agree with that view, and as a result Schumacher finds himself handed a five-place grid penalty for Monaco. It comes after his Pirelli comments which got little support prior to the race, and he then insisted he wasn't criticising the tyres, merely starting a debate. The race itself delivered the fifth different winner from the fifth different team in five races, and that's in no small part down to Pirelli. The current format makes for great racing and great viewing, long may it remain that way.

All downhill for McLaren

For a team that prides itself on attention to detail, it was surprising to see McLaren drop the ball in qualifying and fail to fuel Lewis Hamilton's car sufficiently. It was even more surprising that the mistake came just one race after pit stop blunders in Bahrain. And it appears the team was surprised as much as the rest of the paddock, as when its data started showing Hamilton's car was low on fuel during his outlap it didn't know whether to believe the computers or not. In the end Martin Whitmarsh said he took the call to allow Hamilton on track and after the race was very candid in his assessment.

"I don't think we, rightly or wrongly, envisaged the severity of the penalty that resulted and also Formula One is a great one for hindsight and there's a lot of analysis from experts to inform you where you got it wrong," he said. "But I put my hand up and as team principal as that was unfolding - bearing in mind you're in the adrenaline fused seconds of qualifying, you're trying to understand what's happening and you've got 10 or 20 people trying to deal with it - I said let's go for it and once we get over the line let's start to monitor. It's not easy [to monitor] you can't just put a dipstick in and find out how much fuel's there, and we could have stopped the car and taken three or four litres out of it and I would have been very embarrassed. I was still pretty embarrassed and that's the challenge and you've got to take those decisions."

Vettel, the impressionist

During the FIA press conference on Thursday, Fernando Alonso was flanked by Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel. In front of the media it's hard to find two more different characters, and while Kimi sat quietly Seb was in buoyant mood following his Bahrain victory and in the mood for a joke. When Alonso was asked if the rules were clear now following his incident in Bahrain when Nico Rosberg crowded him off the track, Vettel jumped in. Turning to Alonso he did his best Spanish-accented impression of the team radio that was broadcast: "All the time you must leave a space!" Alonso's face almost matched his Ferrari shirt as the media centre burst out in laughter.

A giant leap for Ferrari

Ferrari spent the Thursday and Friday playing down their upgrades, but on Sunday there was no disguising the improvement the team has made since the first four races of the season. Remarkably Fernando Alonso is tied on points at the top of the championship a quarter of the way through the season and the signs are that things will continue to get better for Ferrari. Nevertheless, the team is not getting carried away and believes more needs to be done over the coming races to make it a real championship challenger. After all, it has performed well above expectations this year whereas the likes of McLaren and Lotus have underachieved. But team principal Stefano Domenicali said the marked improvement in Spain is crucial for motivating the team back at Maranello to make the next step forward. "I'm happy because I saw that the job [we've done] in the last weeks has given the right sign in terms of trend, but we know that it's not enough. I'm happy for my people that at least they showed that the job they are doing is moving things in the right direction."