Maldonado Wins His Maiden Race at the 2012 Spanish Grand Prix

Today was not only a historic day for Pastor Maldonado by winning his maiden grand prix but also for his country. This was the first time in Formula One history that Venezuela was represented on F1's podium. 

With Maldonado winning the 2012 Spanish Grand Prix, it was a difficult day for many fans. They were tremendously excited to see Maldonado and his emotional win but were also dissapointed that none of the front teams made it onto podium. Though it wasn't for trying.

With a late change in the starting grid, Lewis Hamilton (who qualified in P1) was stripped of his pole  position and sent to the back of the grid due to a fuel irregularity. 

"The Stewards determine that this is a breach of Article 6.6.2 of the FIA Formula One Technical Regulations and the Competitor is accordingly excluded from the results of the Qualifying Session. The Competitor is however allowed to start the race from the back of the grid."

This has sent many fans into an uproar but to this writer, it will prove just how good a driver Hamilton is. If he can do what Mark Webber did at the 2011 Chinese Grand Prix (Webber qualified 18th and finished 3rd).

Lap 14 and we saw our first retirement of the race. Mercedes' Michael Schumacher was trying to over take William's Bruno Senna and heading down turn one, showed that Schumacher clattered into the back of Senna. SKY showed Schumacher in the gravel, with his front wing jammed underneath the Mercedes and Bruno Senna hobbling round with a rear puncture.

Maldonado was able to move ahead after the second round of pit stops, and by then Alonso’s challenge seemed at a loss. After the third stops though, the Spaniard got his second wind and his gap to the race leader shrank steadily and by the 48th lap the race was back on, as Alonso never looked more dangerous. Maldonado held his nerve and as the Ferrari’s tyres started to go away again, he pulled away to win by 3.1s.

It was still a good day for Lotus as Kimi Raikkonen came in a good third and Romain Grosjean was an easy fourth. Behind him, Kamui Kobayashi survived a brush with McLaren’s Jenson Button, trying to overtake him, to take fifth for Sauber, (who lost Sergio Perez early on after the Mexican collided with Grosjean in the first corner causing him to make a pit stop at the end of Lap One. Later after a mechanic fell over the right-rear wheel during a stop, Perez lasted only as long as it took him to figure out that the wheel was not properly secured.)

Vettel fought tooth and nail for sixth, his race including a nose change as he struggled to make headway. On fresher tyres he caught and passed the McLarens and Nico Rosberg’s Mercedes in the closing laps to snatch a useful eight points, which was not bad going since he received a drive-through penalty too for ignoring yellow flags.

During the first few laps of the race, Marussia's Charles Pic spun out (and around) and what SKY did not show was Pic's fight to come back. The young Frenchman was lapping 0.9-1.2s better than the HRT's, proving that the French still had Formula One in their blood. And that Marussia is doing great this season for a relatively new team.

Pastor Maldonado	Winner     Fan's Choice
Fernando Alonso	2nd
Kimi Räikkönen	3rd
Romain Grosjean	P4
Kamui Kobayashi	P5
Sebastian Vettel	P6
Nico Rosberg	P7
Lewis Hamilton	P8
Jenson Button	P9
Nico Hülkenberg	P10 (+1 lap)
Mark Webber	P11 (+1 lap)
Jean-Éric Vergne	P12 (+1 lap)
Daniel Ricciardo	P13 (+1 lap)
Paul di Resta	P14 (+1 lap)
Felipe Massa	P15 (+1 lap)
Heikki Kovalainen	P16 (+1 lap)
Vitaly Petrov	P17 (+1 lap)
Timo Glock	P18 (+2 lap)
Pedro de la Rosa	P19 (+3 lap)
Sergio Pérez	Retired (transmission)
Charles Pic	Retired (halfshaft)
Narain Karthikeyan	Retired (wheel)
Bruno Senna	Retired (collision)
Michael Schumacher	Retired (collision)