Starting from pole position, the fifth race of the season was a boon for Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg who wins his first race since last year in Brazil. Rosberg, drove a near perfect race and stayed out front for most of the race. After becoming frustrated with his dwindling chances of a drivers championship, Rosberg was close to giving up as he had to stand back and watch his teammate Lewis Hamilton, win race after race. Now, Rosberg feels as if he has the momentum heading into Monaco, his home race.
Throughout the race, Rosberg had a comfortable lead ahead of Hamilton who finished second, followed by, Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel who was second for most of the race but finish, third. Tire degradation was an Achilles heel for Hamilton and some of the others as they fought to overtake one another while trying to take care if the tires. A pivotal part during the race that ate into Lewis Hamilton’s time was when he went in for his first pit stop. The stop was slow and delayed for reasons that were not clear. Hamilton still leads in points for the drivers championship with Rosberg and Vettel close enough to keep hope alive.
Valtteri Bottas with Williams-Martini racing continued to impress fans by finishing fourth and Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen, fifth. Bottas teammate Felipe Massa was sixth, Daniel Ricciardo seventh and Roman Grojean of Lotus, eighth. The was some great wheel-to-wheel racing on display during the last 3 laps when hometown driver Carlos Sainz Jr., battled with Toro Rosso teammate Max Verstappen for tenth position, then quickly got out in front of Russian driver, Daniil Kvyat, and took ninth. The Manor-Marussia team, was hanging in there with the big boys on the track, while second hometown hero Fernando Alonso, was force to retire due to brake failure, but almost ran over his pit crew when he overshot the garage. His teammate at McLaren- Honda Jenson Button, finished 16th
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