2012 Spanish Grand Prix
The 2012 Spanish Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held on 13 May 2012, at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmeló, Spain, attended by 82,000 people. It was the fifth round of the 2012 Formula One World Championship and the 22nd Spanish Grand Prix at the track. Williams's Pastor Maldonado won the 66-lap event from pole position, with Ferrari's Fernando Alonso second and Lotus's Kimi Räikkönen third.
Sebastian Vettel entered the race as the World Drivers' Championship leader while his team Red Bull were top of the World Constructors' Championship. Lewis Hamilton in his McLaren was fastest in qualifying; he was excluded from the qualifying results for breaking the technical regulations on fuel, forcing him to begin the race from the back of the grid. Maldonado thus inherited pole position, but was overtaken by Alonso at the start of the Grand Prix. After the first two cycles of pit stops for fresh tyres, Maldonado undercut Alonso, who remained out for two more laps and was delayed by a slower driver during the second pit stop cycle. On lap 41, Maldonado's third pit stop was slow due to a tyre fitting fault and he lost his lead, but he retook it again by passing Räikkönen on lap 47. Alonso overtook Räikkönen on the following lap as well, and drew close to Maldonado; he could not pass Maldonado who maintained the lead for the rest of the race and achieved his maiden and only Formula One win. Alonso finished 3.1 seconds behind in second place and Räikkönen took third after being put on an alternate strategy intended to give him victory.
The race was Williams's first victory since Juan Pablo Montoya won the, and is their last one as of 2025. Maldonado was the fifth race winner in the season's first five races. As of 2025, he is the only Venezuelan driver to have won a Formula One race. Following the race, Vettel and Alonso shared the World Drivers' Championship lead with 61 points each. Hamilton finished eighth, dropping from second to third, while Räikkönen advanced from seventh to fourth. With 15 races remaining in the season, Red Bull maintained its World Constructors' Championship lead over McLaren and Lotus with 109 points.
Background
The 2012 Spanish Grand Prix, held on 13 May, was the fifth of 20 races in the 2012 Formula One World Championship and the 22nd at the 16-turn Circuit de Catalunya in Montmeló, Catalonia, north of Barcelona. Tyre supplier Pirelli brought the yellow banded soft and the silver-banded hard dry compound tyres to the race. McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh and Mercedes' Michael Schumacher criticised Pirelli for the extreme sensitivity of their tyres, and brought a different set of tyres to better demonstrate a difference in performance and tyre durability. The single drag reduction system activation zone was placed on the straight linking the final and first corners. For the race, of artificial grass was installed on turn three's verge and the turn five exit kerb was lengthened by.Before the race, Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel led the World Drivers' Championship with 53 points, ahead of McLaren's Lewis Hamilton and Vettel's teammate Mark Webber in second and third. Hamilton's teammate Jenson Button and Ferrari's Fernando Alonso tied for fourth position with 43 points. Red Bull led the World Constructors' Championship with 101 points, followed by McLaren and Lotus with 92 and 57 points, respectively. Ferrari were fourth with 45 points and Mercedes were fifth with 37 points.
From 1 to 3 May, the teams conducted a three-day test at the Mugello Circuit in Italy ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix. The test allowed teams to assess major aerodynamic and mechanical upgrades as well as tyre behaviour. The HRT team chose not to participate in the test, instead focusing on establishing their new headquarters at the Caja Mágica in Madrid. Alonso was fastest on the first day of testing on a drying circuit. Lotus' Romain Grosjean and Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi set identical lap times to go quickest on the second day of testing. Vettel was quickest on the morning of the final day and Grosjean led the afternoon session.
File:Sebastian Vettel 2012 Bahrain GP.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Sebastian Vettel, the World Drivers' Championship leader, coming into the race
The championship had been tumultuous thus far, with four different drivers winning the first four rounds. Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said he felt consistency across races which teams could not win would determine the championship winner:
Alonso had won the before finishing no higher than seventh in the next two races, dropping him ten points behind Vettel in the Drivers' Championship. He said that updates to his car could potentially improve his performance in Spain, but he was unsure: "Having said that, it's not the case that if we are not on pole in Barcelona then it's the end of the world." After finishing second at the preceding, Räikkönen said his objective was to win the race in Spain: "That is the target for me and the team. We want to win grands prix. We have a good car and we saw in Bahrain it is good enough to win. That's the target." Hamilton believed passing would be difficult in Spain and hoped to achieve a good qualifying performance for an easier race, saying: "It's always been a tough place for passing – as I found out last year – but I really hope DRS and KERS-Hybrid combined will make it a little easier."
There were no changes from the season entry list for the 12 teams. There were four driver changes for the first practice session. Dani Clos, a HRT test driver, was allowed to drive Narain Karthikeyan's HRT F112 car in an official Formula One session for the first time by team principal Luis Pérez-Sala. Alexander Rossi of the Formula Renault 3.5 Series made his practice debut in Heikki Kovalainen's Caterham CT01 car. He was the first American to partake in a Formula One race weekend since Scott Speed in. Williams reserve driver and 2011 GP3 Series champion Valtteri Bottas drove Bruno Senna's car, and Force India reserve driver Jules Bianchi replaced Paul di Resta.
Practice
The 2012 season's regulations scheduled three practice sessions: two 90-minute sessions on Friday morning and afternoon, and another 60-minute session on Saturday morning. Alonso lapped fastest at 1:24.430 with 21 minutes remaining in the first practice session, which took place in clear and warm weather, followed by Vettel, who led for 15 minutes, Kobayashi, Button, Bottas, Mercedes driver Michael Schumacher, Grosjean, Hamilton, Räikkönen and Force India's Nico Hülkenberg. Pedro de la Rosa's HRT car bottomed out braking for the first corner and removing the right-rear bargeboard, which was later retrieved from turn one. Clos stopped with a car mechanical problem at the top of the conclusion of the entry to the pit lane.Conditions warmed in the second session on Friday afternoon. Button, driving with a chronic understeer, set the day's fastest lap of 1:23.399 seconds on the soft compound tyres with 55 minutes remaining. Vettel duplicated his first practice result in second, Mercedes' Nico Rosberg was third and Hamilton improved to fourth. The Lotus duo of Räikkönen and Grosjean were fifth and sixth and Webber, Schumacher, Kobayashi and Hülkenberg followed in the top ten. Teams conducted simulations on how their cars would behave in the race. Some drivers ran off the track during the session. Webber carried excess speed and drove onto the turn four gravel trap. The floor of Webber's RB8 car accumulated gravel and stones deposited on the racing line after rejoining the circuit via an area of grass between the gravel and a tyre wall. Sergio Pérez went off the track at the same corner in his Sauber car.
The third session took place in warm and dry weather on Saturday morning. Several drivers led before Vettel set the session's fastest time, a 1:23.168 on the soft compound tyres. Williams driver Pastor Maldonado was second and Kobayashi improved to third. Webber, Pérez, Alonso, Toro Rosso driver Jean-Éric Vergne, Button, Räikkönen and Rosberg made up positions four to ten. Grosjean's Lotus car lost power due to a sudden loss of fuel pressure, causing his engine to stall 17 minutes into the session at turn ten. His session ended early because mechanics were unable to rectify the problem. After the session, stewards summoned Schumacher and Hamilton to discuss an incident in which the latter ran wide at turn 13 and rejoined the track in front of the former before slowing at the apex of turn 15. The stewards reprimanded Schumacher after agreeing it was a minor incident.
Qualifying
Saturday afternoon's qualifying session was split into three parts. The first session ran for 20 minutes, eliminating cars that finished 18th or lower. The second session lasted 15 minutes, eliminating cars that finished 11th to 17th. The final ten-minute session determined pole position to tenth. Cars that qualified for the final session had to start the race on the tyres with which they set their quickest lap times in the session. Conditions were warm and dry for qualifying. The track improved by about eight-tenths of a second per lap, rather than the usual three-tenths. Unlike other fast drivers, Hamilton completed two timed laps and beat Alonso and Maldonado to claim his provisional third pole position of 2012, 22nd of his career, and McLaren's 150th in Formula One with a time of 1 minute, 21.707 seconds. Maldonado qualified provisional second despite an untidy lap while Alonso saved a set of soft tyres and set the third-fastest lap. Grosjean took fourth using a setup learned the day before by Lotus. His teammate Räikkönen, fifth, made minor errors during his lap on the soft tyres. Pérez, sixth, was the faster Sauber driver, with Rosberg seventh after a lap set early in the third session on a new set of left-hand tyres and right-hand compounds. Vettel and Schumacher in eighth and ninth both elected not to complete a full lap in the third session as a tyre-saving measure for the race. Kobayashi, tenth, suffered a hydraulic leak en route to the pit lane at the end of the second session, prompting Sauber to instruct him to stop his car to ensure no further damage was sustained.Button, 11th, was the fastest driver not to qualify for the final session due to an unbalanced car with understeer in high-speed corners and an unstable rear entering slower-speed turns when McLaren added angle to his front wing. Red Bull misjudged how much the track would improve and Webber was told to not exit the pit lane for a second timed lap, leaving him 12th after going second early in the second session. Force India's Di Resta and Hülkenberg were 13th and 14th; Di Resta's car's aerodynamic balance was changed for his final lap of the second session. Vergne qualified ahead of teammate Ricciardo for the first time in 2012 after Toro Rosso modified their cars overnight. Ferrari's Felipe Massa, 17th, registered his lowest starting position since the due to heavy traffic during his preparation and slowing his final timed lap of the second session. Senna, 18th, spun his car into the gravel trap at turn 12 in an attempt to qualify for the second session at the end of the first. Vitaly Petrov, 19th, located a balance on the soft tyres and kinetic energy recovery system mapping made him happier braking in his Caterham but ran wide at turn three. He qualified ahead of his teammate Heikki Kovalainen in 20th for the first time in 2012; Kovalainen lost time through an error at turn three. Charles Pic, 21st, beat his Marussia teammate Timo Glock in 22nd by four-tenths of a second, due to an error and tyre issues. An improved car balance put Pedro de la Rosa of the HRT team in 23rd, while a flat-spotted tyre caused by Karthikeyan spinning at turn three hindered his teammate. Karthikeyan failed to qualify within 107 percent of Hamilton's fastest time in the first session due to a loose rooftop cowling housing a camera.