Nico Rosberg won the pole for the 2015 Spanish Grand Prix and that is all you need to do as a Mercedes driver for the past two years as Rosberg pulled away from the field, leaving teammate Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel to duke it out for second place in the fifth Formula One race of the year. That battle was eventually – inevitably – won by Hamilton, who pulled away from Vettel late in the race to comfortably grab the second podium spot ahead of Vettel.
Only six cars out of the starting field of 20 – a whopping 30% of the grid – finished on the lead lap and none of those were competitive with the leader or even for any of the podium spots as all top three finishers were spaced out with wide gaps between them. As Rosberg pulled away through the course of the race, what passed for drama was how long Vettel could hold off Hamilton for second [turns out, for about 50 of the 66 laps], how many cars would finish on the lead lap and if either of the Lotus drivers would crash or injure anybody before the race ended. No crashes occurred and only Romain Grosjean’s pit crew jackman suffered a minor injury – mainly to his pride – after Grosjean tried to run him over after coming in too fast during a pit stop.
Other than that, it was another day at the beach for Mercedes and a few extra points for Rosberg, who inched closer to Hamilton in the 2015 Formula One season driver standings. There, Hamilton leads with 111 points to Rosberg’s 91 points with Vettel in third with 80 points.
The 2015 Formula One season continues with the Monaco Grand Prix in Monaco at 5 a.m. [PDT] on NBCSN on May 24, 2015.
2015 Spanish Grand Prix Results
POS. DRIVER COUNTRY TEAM TIME POINTS
1 NICO ROSBERG GER MERCEDES 1:41:12.555s 25
2 LEWIS HAMILTON GBR MERCEDES 17.551s 18
3 SEBASTIAN VETTEL GER FERRARI 45.342s 15
4 VALTTERI BOTTAS FIN WILLIAMS 59.217s 12
5 KIMI RÄIKKÖNEN FIN FERRARI 60.002s 10
6 FELIPE MASSA BRA WILLIAMS 81.314s 8
7 DANIEL RICCIARDO AUS RED BULL 1 lap 6
8 ROMAIN GROSJEAN FRA LOTUS 1 lap 4
9 CARLOS SAINZ ESP TORO ROSSO 1 lap 2
10 DANIIL KVYAT RUS RED BULL 1 lap 1
11 MAX VERSTAPPEN NED TORO ROSSO 1 lap
12 FELIPE NASR BRA SAUBER 1 lap
13 SERGIO PEREZ MEX FORCE INDIA 1 lap
14 MARCUS ERICSSON SWE SAUBER 1 lap
15 NICO HULKENBERG GER FORCE INDIA 1 lap
16 JENSON BUTTON GBR MCLAREN 1 lap
17 WILL STEVENS GBR MARUSSIA 3 laps
18 ROBERTO MERHI ESP MARUSSIA 4 laps
RT PASTOR MALDONADO VEN LOTUS DNF
RT FERNANDO ALONSO ESP MCLAREN DNF