Another Race, Another Winner, Another Packed Day In The Paddock

May 16, 2012 by www.redbullracing.com

Pretty much the whole of F1 agreed that Maldonado's pole and win was a fitting tribute to his team owner Sir Frank Williams who is 70 this week. However, a fire in the team garage as the Paddock packed down took away some of the shine from their deserved celebrations.

As well as a great drive by Maldonado, who battled to keep Alonso off his rear wing all afternoon, this again played out as a great racing spectacle: including Michael Schumacher colliding with Bruno Senna right in the path of Sebastian's RB8, Hamilton scything through the pack to finish 8th and both our drivers suffering damage to their front wings on a day which everyone in our garage and our pitwall might describe as 'difficult'.

After Hamilton's penalty Sebastian started the Spanish Grand Prix in 7th and - despite that change in nose and an additional drive-through penalty - overtook three cars in the closing stages and still managed to move up one place in the final reckoning. Mark has a less auspicious start to his afternoon, having a difficult first lap and a lack of pace which kept him out of the points and he finished 11th. But both had to make a stop to replace a damaged front wing and nose and tribute to the boys in the pitlane who delivered in every pitstop, even with that additional work.

However, the team retains its lead of both championships, thanks both to Seb's finish today, to our consistency on track and in the box, and partly down to the inconsistency of the season so far. We've had five races and five different winners - the last time that happened was 1983 when Nelson Piquet (Brabham), John Watson (McLaren), Alain Prost (Renault) and Patrick Tambay (Ferrari) won the first four races and the sequence was then extended when, in the hands of Keke Rosberg, in a Williams made it five from five.

Next up is Monaco where Maldonado's been on the podium four times including two wins there since 2007 in lower formulae and we've won the last two grands prix. But, as is becoming more and more obvious in 2012, form counts for nothing in this season of F1…