Lotus Racing F1 Team Race Report: Spanish GP

9th May 2010 marks the start of the European races in the 2010 season of Formula 1. The Spanish Grand Prix sees a closely battled qualifying session, which sees Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel, both from Red Bull Racing, slugging it out for the pole position. Going for pole position here is vital as for the past 5 years the winner of this race started from pole. At the end of the qualifying Mark Webber took the coveted spot, which saw him won the race by a massive 24-second margin ahead of Scuderia Ferrari's Fernando Alonso, who is racing in front of his home crowd for the first time in the scarlet machine. 2008 champion Lewis Hamilton, who was ahead of Alonso and poised for the second podium spot, was dealt a cruel hand when his left front tyre suffered a puncture and caused him to crash. This gifted Alonso 2nd place. Taking the final podium spot is Sebastian Vettel. Former world champion Michael Schumacher, who was criticised for his unimpressive performance in the first 4 races, had a better afternoon and finished 4th in a car made to his requirements, ahead of defending world champion Jenson Button. Lotus Racing's Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalainen qualified at 19th and 20th respectively, but a gearbox failure ended Kovalainen's race on the first lap. Jarno Trulli, who failed to finish a race since the Australian GP, did the team proud and finished 17th. Trulli said after the race, "I'm pleased we finished comfortably ahead of Virgin even though the car felt a bit difficult to drive! I don't really know why but it didn't feel the same as it did on Friday. We achieved what we set out to do and we showed good race pace and finished well." Technical director Mike Gascoyne is confident that the team will do better at the next race, the Monaco GP.