Vettel holds Hamilton for fourth season victory

Sebastian Vettel continued his dominant performance this season as he won this Sunday the Spanish Grand Prix, held in the Circuit of Catalunya, near Barcelona. The German held the pressure from Hamilton to take his fourth win of the season.

With a unique three-stop strategy Jenson Button was third, while Mark Webber couldn't hold to his pole position and ended up in fourth. Although he lead until the second pitstop and gave his home crowd something to cheer for, Fernando Alonso ended up in fifth.

Mark Webber didn't use to his advantage the fact that he was on pole position for the Spanish Grand Prix. In fact his lead only lasted for some metres as Vettel was immediately pushing him. But the surprise came from fast starting local hero Alonso who drove the crowd to ecstasy as he pass the two Red Bulls on the inside to take the lead.

The Spaniard kept the lead during the first two sets of tyres, pressured closely by Vettel, Webber and Hamilton, with the DRS proving not to be as effective as it had been in Turkey. With Ferrari having a good performance coming out of the final corner and on the straight no one was able to pressure sufficiently the home hero.

In the first tyre exchange Vettel pitted one lap sooner than everyone to try and jump ahead of the Spaniard but he wasn't successful as he was caught on traffic as he returned to the track. On laps 17 and 18 the same tactic would then have a different result as an extra lap on new tyres gave the lead to the world champion.

Webber didn't have the same luck as he pitted at the same time as Alonso and wasn't able to leave the pits ahead of the Spaniard. On McLaren the strategy was different. The team opted to leave Hamilton out until lap 22, which was sufficient to jump to second place ahead of Alonso and Webber.

After the second stop Vettel and Hamilton would run away from the rest of the pack, while Alonso was holding off Webber. The two would be overtaken by Button which with a three stop tyres made a mid-race breakthrough.

In the final visit to the pits Webber finally took fourth place from Alonso as the Ferrari began to fade and struggled with hard tyres, eventually being lapped.

Webber then tried to catch Button, a mission that quickly proved to be impossible. At the front Hamilton was now getting closer to Vettel, with problems in the KERS system being transmitted via radio.

With a close battle on their hands, the two drivers fought for the lead, but the lead change in last laps of the race as it happened in China didn't happen, with Vettel driving for the win, with 0.6s ahead of the Brit.

Mercedes team-mates fought the entire race for sixth and seventh places with Michael Schumacher finishing ahead of Rosberg. In a superb race and making use of a clever strategy and many fresh tyres Nick Heidfeld jumped from last to eighth.

The top ten was closed with the two Saubers, with Sergio Pérez taking his first ever F1 points in ninth, while his team mate Kobayashi recovered from a first-lap puncture to finish in 10th.

Felipe Massa continued to struggle this afternoon. After a mid-race spin which put him down to the last positions of top ten, the Brazilian ended up retiring with six laps to go.

Team Lotus continued to show its pace improvement in Spain with both the team's cars placing in the top ten after long first stints on soft tyres. Unfortunately, Jarno Trulli would then fade into 18th place while his team-mate crashed out at Turn 4.

Fastest Lap: Fernando Alonso - 1:26.727

Drivers Championship Standings, after round 5

Constructors Championship Standings, after round 5