Will Rosberg's win at the Spanish GP kickstart his title challenge?

Rosberg puts the brakes on Hamilton’s title defence with Spanish Grand Prix win The Mercedes roared around the Circuit de Catalunya, the bright Spanish sunshine glinting off its frosted silver, black and teal bodywork. It was the second part of the hour-long qualifying session, the fifteen minute in-between bit that sorts out those who will go on to fight for pole from those who won’t. The fastest time in this session would be irrelevant – all that would be needed would be a lap good enough to slot him in somewhere among the top ten, something he was assured of given his car’s advantage. No need to push himself then, or his car, to the absolute limit. He would after all be starting the race on these same tyres. No sense, then, taking more life out of them than necessary in an attempt to set the fastest time which would anyway be deleted. [caption id=“attachment_2238168” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Nico Rosberg gets to look down on Lewis Hamilton for a change. Getty[/caption] Better to drive within himself and the limits of his car, setting aside an advantage – albeit a small one – but one he could use to run just that little bit longer and swing what in all likelihood would be a close race, turning on fine margins, against his team-mate in his favour. Or was it? He had tried that at the last round in Bahrain, saving his tyres for the race. But it had backfired on him, leaving him searching for the limit of the car and, as a result, leaving a whole chunk of lap time on the table. His team-mate, the reigning world champion, was also on a flying lap, further up the road and out of sight, but on course for the fastest time. He had beaten him to pole 11 times in 18 races last year, when he had also taken the championship battle down to the wire, only losing out at the season-finale in Abu Dhabi. But winning the championship had helped his team-mate, also his former childhood friend, find another gear and he had been unable to stop him from powering to four straight pole-positions and three wins from the first four races. He absolutely needed to turn the tide, stem the loss of points and put the brakes on his team-mate’s title defence. The start of the European season, which he had dominated last year, gave him a nice little milestone at which to ignite his championship challenge. Which is why he wasn’t leaving any time on the table, even though all he needed was a ‘banker’ lap. He had learned from Bahrain, which is why he was giving it everything, running it on the limit. He knew how important pole would be here, he knew that of the 24 races run at the Circuit de Catalunya, 18 of them had been won by the driver starting at the front, he knew how important getting a feeling for the limit would be for him to secure that crucial pole. His team-mate crossed the line. The time flashed up on his steering wheel display – a one minute 25.740 seconds. He knew he was much quicker. He rounded the final corner and sped across the start-finish line. His own time flashed up on the screen of his steering wheel, a massive half a second up on his team-mate’s best. Nico Rosberg had found his limit. He carried that knowledge over into the final 12-minutes of the qualifying hour and duly broke Lewis Hamilton’s stranglehold on qualifying by storming to his first pole position of the season. “For sure, yeah, Bahrain was still in my mind and I wanted to make sure that I don’t do that mistake again,” Rosberg said after qualifying. “I just got myself in the rhythm in Q2 and it worked really well for me today.” Rosberg had been building up to that pole for some time now. The German had been lackluster in the opening races of the season in Australia and Malaysia. But in China Rosberg had got to within four-hundredths of Hamilton’s pole time, only just missing out by the blink of an eye. In Bahrain he had driven a feisty race against the Ferraris and only conceded second to Kimi Raikkonen in the dying stages of the race when his brakes faded. He had shown flashes of the brilliance that had taken him to within touching distance of the world championship last year in recent races, but pole position in Spain offered the first real solid piece of evidence that Rosberg was back at his best. It also laid the foundation for his first win of the season. Relegating Hamilton to second forced the Briton to start from the dirty side of the grid, which probably played a role in his slow getaway, allowing Vettel to surge ahead and act as a buffer between the two Mercedes. This in turn let Rosberg build what would turn out to be an insurmountable lead over Hamilton at his leisure. So can Rosberg’s win at the Spanish Grand Prix be flagged as a turning point of the season? It certainly ignited his title challenge but can he use the psychological boost it surely must have given him to launch a sustained championship assault? It’s certainly tempting to think so but, as commanding as his performance in Spain was, it coincided with an ‘off’ weekend for Hamilton over which he constantly struggled to find the right balance with his car. The level at which the reigning champion is driving this year suggests it will take more than one defeat to knock him out of his groove. But a second successive victory at the next race in Monaco could well solidify Rosberg’s title challenge as well as take some wind out of Hamilton’s sails. Hamilton and Rosberg are residents of Monaco and it’s a home race for both drivers but it’s the German who has held the edge over his British rival on the streets of the Principality, winning the race for the last two years. Indeed, Monaco was where Rosberg regained the initiative in the championship battle last year, when his run down the escape road in qualifying knocked Hamilton off-balance, and set him up to take the first of three wins from six races as he stretched his legs over the Briton ahead of the summer break. “We’re just going to enjoy this win as an individual race,” Rosberg said following victory in Spain. “It’s great to close up seven points to Lewis, great to go to Monaco next – I really like that track – that’s it.”