Monaco Preview

Now let’s have no more silliness about these new rules not working. What a race. Sebastian Vettel’s victory in Barcelona on Sunday was another brutal assault on the senses; a nail-biter that remained in the balance until the final lap.

As in China, where Lewis Hamilton caught and eventually overhauled Red Bull’s world champion five laps from the end, it was impossible for anyone to know how the race would finish. Surely that is what we all want?

I thought the same thing would happen in Spain as had happened in Shanghai but as it turned out Seb paced both himself and his tyres brilliantly, was faultless in the final stretch and hung on.

McLaren may be kicking themselves now that they did not set up Lewis’s car with a longer top gear. He was on the limiter for a lot of the start-finish straight and might have been able to pass Sebastian had he been able to make full use of seventh gear.

Not that it was necessarily an error of judgment. Gearing a car is always a compromise. When you qualify a car with 10kg of fuel and sticky soft tyres and then have to race with a start fuel load of 160kg and partially-used tyres, there is no way you can be perfect for both scenarios.

Either way, it was a gripping battle. And the most encouraging thing is Spain usually produces one of the dullest grands prix of the year.