By cruising to victory at the Spanish Grand Prix Nico Rosberg answered a lot of questions that were beginning to swirl around him, mainly does he have what it takes to beat Lewis Hamilton in 2015? Yes is the answer and he won the Spanish Grand Prix with as much ease as Hamilton has won races so far this season.  Indeed Rosberg’s race weekend was never flustered he dominated his team mate who never looked settled and for the first time Rosberg outpaced Hamilton to pole position. Rosberg would go on to win Sunday’s race, untroubled and never challenged for such was his pace and race supremacy. Hamilton endured a tough day at the office, he made a bad start which left him easy prey to third place Vettel who gladly accepted second. Hamilton would spend much of the race trying to claw back that second place, a botched pit stop meant he had to work twice as hard to overtake Vettel. The Ferrari can hold its own for straight line speed against the Mercedes whereas last year Ferrari were short of Horsepower. Hamilton couldn’t get close enough on the main straight because he couldn’t find an ideal handling setup all weekend and this compromised his ultimate pace. But Hamilton didn’t need to overtake he eventually used the “undercut” by pitting early and making use of fresher tyres and superior pace to overtake Vettel during his third pitstop. Vettel was quick but both Mercedes were quicker still, Rosberg finished 45 seconds ahead. When Hamilton was eventually able to break free of Vettel’s turbulent air he was able to build a 15 second gap and set about hunting down Rosberg for a possible showdown for 1st place but backed off after realising he had to few laps left in which to do so. Ferrari debuted a number of upgrades but they were not transformative enough to match the speed of the Mercedes who also brought with them upgrades which were transformative. In many ways this was demonstrated by Kimi Raikkonen. The Ferrari driver much like Hamilton had trouble finding the ideal handling balance for the Barcelona circuit and finished the race in 5th place behind the Williams of Valtteri Bottas. Sixth was taken by the Williams of Felipe Massa who battled hard from a 9th place start. Daniel Ricciardo was lapped as he ended the race 7th followed by the Lotus of Romain Grosjean and the Torro Rosso of Carlos Sainz. The second Red Bull driven by Daniil Kvyat rounded off the top 10 points finishers. McLaren were hoping a raft of upgrades would improve their back-of-the-field status, the upgrades did bring more pace. Both Alonso and Button made it  through to the second round of qualifying on Saturday but Sunday is where it always counts. And by the official count only Button finished, but he was lapped and his McLaren was a handful to drive. For Alonso it was a DNF, the McLaren Honda dream team is currently a project needing progress. Alonso was forced to retire after suffering brake failure, the cause was a rip off visor blocking a brake duck causing the brakes to overheat. For Rosberg it was a perfect weekend, untroubled he eased to a much needed first win of the season and may yet again prove to be the thorn in Hamilton’s side. And this can only be a good thing for the championship, no one wants to see Hamilton running away with another title. Spanish Grand Prix Results