Grand Prix 2

Round 2: Malaysia
Starting Grid
1.Vettel
2.Hamilton
3.Ricciardo
4.Rosberg
5.Button
6.Raikkonen
7.Alonso
8.Maldonado
9.Hulkenberg
10.Bottas
11.Magnussen
12.Perez
13.Grosjean
14.Vergne
15.Massa
16.Sutil
17.Kvyat
18.Bianchi
19.Chilton
20.Kobayashi
21.van der Garde
22.Gutierrez

An uneventful start, though the Mercedes take the lead. Bottas and Kvyat are the first retirements, followed by Maldonado and Perez again. Rosberg is delayed down the back, while Hamilton gets a lurid spin out of turn 2 in backmarkers, colliding with Vettel. Lewis is out, but Vettel pits for a new wing. This leaves Ricciardo in front.

Vettel is very fast, but retires with a mechanical failure. Hulkenberg goes strongly challenging the Ferraris early on.

van der Garde is doing another sterling job from 21st and later on is beating at least 1 Sauber. Vergne was heavily delayed and not very fast anyway this time.

Ricciardo builds up a huge lead on the Ferraris but Rosberg eventually looks good to catch up for 2nd but retires for the second race in a row. This leaves Button on course for a fine return to 2nd and the podium, but he crashes with a few laps left in what turns out to be a race of attrition. He is not out though and despite losing much time, pits and comes out behind Hulkenberg who he massively catches and overtakes.

Before this, with little more than 10 laps to go, van der Garde is catching Sutil fast, and easily ahead of Gutierrez. Bianchi has already retired having run out of position in 15th early on. As others retire, van der Garde is on course to inherit 10th, but he himself suffers a heartbreaking oil leak before he gets into that position.

Gutierrez then takes the 10th place that van der Garde was about to come into, only to retire himself.

This leaves only 12 finishers as Ricciardo scores a hugely popular victory, miles ahead of Raikkonen and Alonso, with Button and Hulkenberg not far behind. Grosjean and Magnussen are a fairly distant 6th and 7th, with Massa putting in a slow but steady drive for 8th. Sutil is even further back and a much delayed Vergne takes 10th, absolutely nowhere. This means Kobayashi and Chilton take 11th and 12th.



Round 3: Bahrain
Starting Grid
1.Hamilton
2.Alonso
3.Vettel
4.Rosberg
5.Ricciardo
6.Raikkonen
7.Magnussen
8.Perez
9.Grosjean
10.Hulkenberg
11.Bottas
12.Sutil
13.Button
14.Maldonado
15.Massa
16.Gutierrez
17.Vergne
18.Kvyat

Hulkenberg stars early on but retires, as does his team-mate and the Toro Rossos. Rosberg is caught in an incident and needs to replace his front wing, ruining his race again. On the exact same lap, Hamilton inexplicably gets caught in backmarkers again, puts a wheel off track and his wheel ends up being ripped off. He was putting in a real challenge for victory and was leading. This lets Vettel through.

Vettel is on a 2 stop and come out behind Alonso, but soon overtakes him and builds up a big lead in the remaining laps to win, over 20sec. Ricciardo is very close behind and takes another good result in 3rd. Raikkonen manages to hold off the recovering Rosberg for 4th. Magnussen scores a good 6th ahead of Button, while Bottas and the closely matched Lotuses led by Grosjean round out the points. There are 14 finishers.



Round 4: China
Ricciardo just edges Vettel for pole at the death. Mercedes take the 2nd row just a little slower, Rosberg ahead. Ferraris take row 3, but Magnussen stars again in 7th. Gutierrez outqualifies Sutil in 14th and Vergne and Kvyat are 17th and 19th, van der Garde impressively splitting them.

Oddly, Ricciardo takes a close victory from Vettel, Hamilton and Rosberg. The Ferraris stay the same. Button, Perez, Massa and Grosjean fill out the points. There are 6 retirements.



Round 5: Spain
Top 6 on grid filled by usual suspects, though Raikkonen 3rd.

Vettel utterly dominates this one I'm afraid, by just over a minute (sigh). It's very close behind as 2nd-5th are covered by 5sec. Hamilton finishes 1sec ahead of Rosberg, the gap having stayed that way for much of the race.

Raikkonen and Ricciardo had been having a tense fight, with a small gap, then one taking the other. In the end Raikkonen just made it to another 4th. There were 6 retirements: Button, Grosjean, Perez, Massa, Kvyat (has retired from every race) and Kobayashi, who retired after a stupid collision with Raikkonen at turn 2 while he was fighting Ricciardo near the end.



Round 6: Monaco
Starting Grid
You know how at Monaco, sometimes you just can't get a time in.

1.Hamilton
2.Ricciardo+0.2
3.Rosberg+0.5
4.Raikkonen+0.9
5.Alonso+1.3 - could have gone faster
6.Button+1.7
7.Bottas+1.8
8.Grosjean+1.9
9.Vergne+1.9
10.Sutil+2.1
11.Maldonado+2.1
12.Magnussen+2.3 - could have maybe had 5th
13.Kvyat+2.4
14.Perez+2.8
15.Massa+2.9
16.Gutierrez+3.3
17.van der Garde+4.1
18.Kobayashi+4.5
19.Hulkenberg+4.6
20.Bianchi+6.6
21.Chilton+6.7
23.Vettel+7.9 - behind even Bruno Senna's Scorpion!

Ricciardo takes the lead but reitres on lap 2 - his first of the season! This delays Hamilton and Raikkonen takes his chance and leads the race. Vettel is already challenging van der Garde for 15th at the end of lap 2. Gutierrez was in for a new nose on lap 1 and Kobayashi spun at the chicane on lap 3.

By lap 7, Vettel has already caught up to the top 10 and a train of cars but can't get past Kevin Magnussen.Van der Garde retires from a promising 16th.