Rosberg now finally has a 'foot in the door' in the 2015 title race, reckon the British press; Plight of Mercedes' vanquished rivals also put under the spotlight post-Barcelona.
Tuesday 19 May 2015 13:44, UK
By winning the Spanish GP, Nico Rosberg proved that he is not finished yet in the battle with Lewis Hamilton for supremacy at Mercedes, Fleet Street have declared.
Having failed to beat his team-mate in any of the opening four flyaway rounds, Rosberg produced the performance he needed at Barcelona to claim both his first pole and race victory of 2015.
While only an isolated victory at this stage, the British press believe it has wider significance given the contrasting starts to the season Rosberg and Hamilton had made which had led to suggestions that the Briton had the battle won.
‘There are plenty who think the man judged to be Formula 1’s most cerebral driver has been thinking too fast and driving too slowly this season,' said Kevin Eason in The Times.
‘Yesterday, Nico Rosberg turned down the neurons and abandoned himself to his emotions after winning the Spanish Grand Prix. This was the first victory of the season for Rosberg, a crucial one in the contest with the precious talent of Hamilton…it is not quite brains against brawn, but the extraordinary skills of the Briton were quelled here and his victory bandwagon stopped in its tracks.’
Having reduced his championship deficit to Hamilton to 20 points, The Daily Telegraph reckons Rosberg finally has ‘a foot in the door’ as far as the title race is concerned.
‘The depleted grandstands will not have been enthused at the soporific affair, neither will Formula 1’s powerbrokers, who meet this week to discuss the rule book, but Rosberg will not have minded one jot,’ Daniel Johnson wrote.
‘He summoned a faultless performance here, leading from the start and never looking back, untroubled all afternoon.’
However, while Rosberg delivered what he himself described as a “perfect” weekend to return to the top step of the podium, Fleet Street stressed that Hamilton’s race-day performance at Barcelona shouldn’t be overlooked either after he recovered from a poor start to finish a fighting second.
‘One note of caution. Rosberg barely had to work for this one, with Hamilton entangled in all sorts of troubles from the start,’ The Daily Telegraph continued.
‘If the two-time champion had a cleaner run, who knows how this might have panned out. But through a combination of self-inflicted mistakes and blunders by the team, Hamilton was always going to be second best here.'
The Sun’s Ben Hunt, meanwhile, wrote: ‘Lewis Hamilton lost the battle to Nico Rosberg – but is still in pole position to win the Formula 1 war.’
But what of Mercedes’ vanquished rivals after the world champion’s 45-second victory at Barcelona?
‘Mercedes’ one-two in Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix was a crushing blow for a Ferrari team that had gone to Barcelona believing they could take the fight to the Silver Arrows,’ wrote The Independent’s David Tremayne.
Ferrari, though, at least remain the team most likely to stop the Mercedes juggernaut as the European season progresses, with the plight of ex-world champions Red Bull and McLaren only worsening in Spain.
‘Red Bull were busily hunting down clean towels to throw into the ring in submission,’ The Times suggested. ‘Their season is an unmitigated calamity and the four-time world champions have been humbled by a misfiring Renault engine that has gone from troublesome to deeply embarrassing.’
For McLaren, meanwhile, the situation remains even more gloomy with the legendary outfit remaining point-less in 2015 after a race in which Jenson Button described the Honda-powered MP4-30 as “scary” to drive.
‘As McLaren recorded their worst ever start to a season Fernando Alonso’s predictions they could make the points places proved laughably wide of the mark,’ Byron Young in the Daily Mirror remarked.
‘Button, survivor of a 190mph Monaco smash [in 2003], was not even confident for much of the race he would complete the next bend.’
As far as the title race is concerned, the 'next bend' takes Hamilton and Rosberg to Monaco - the scene of the Mercedes pair's most explosive encounters in 2014.
