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With Ferrari’s cars easily the quickest on the circuit in last night’s Spanish Grand Prix, it’s no surprise that Fernando Alonso who started from fifth place held his head high in front of his home crowd at Catalunya and stood on the top step of the podium.

The race was once against played with Pirelli’s tyres, with the grand prix in total having 82 pit stops. Ferrari played the tyre game card flawlessly, using the four-stop strategy. The team from Lotus had great tyre conservation, deciding to only pit Kimi Raikkonen three times.

Even though Mercedes were quickest in qualifying with Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton on the front row of the grid, they both failed to make the podium after both suffering with tyre issues.

The start of the race proved once again to be fast and exciting, with Rosberg taking the jump from his British teammate Hamilton. Hamilton was lucky to make it through the first turn, locking up both of his front wheels and unfortunately flat spotting his tyres. Current world champion Sebastian Vettel managed to go around the outside of Hamilton to take second position.

The two Germans Rosberg and Vettel led the front of the field for a short period of the race, but the roaring pace of the Ferrari’s wasn’t ignored, with Alonso right behind Vettel’s Redbull Racing Renault.

It didn’t take long for Alonso to make a move on the world champion, with the Ferrari driver making a massive pass around the outside of Vettel which proved to be a vital move for the out-coming of the 66-lap race.

Rosberg was losing his battle with his hard compound tyres, which allowed Alonso to swoop in and take first position, with Vettel, Raikkonen and Massa not long after making passes on the pole-sitter.

The race was then a battle of the tyres and the teams, with Raikkonen not proving strong enough on his tyres with the three-stop strategy out in the front of the field. Fernando and the team at the Ferrari strived for the four-stop strategy and they did not look back, eventually passing Raikkonen and taking the win.

With talks of Australian Daniel Ricciardo replacing Mark Webber at the end of the season, the Toro-Rosso driver would have man a lasting impression on the team at Redbull, driving an outstanding race to make it into the points to finish in tenth place.

Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso also joined his teammate on the podium, with Massa finishing third. Raikkonen managed to hold on with his old tyres and finished second, with Redbull Racing’s Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber rounding out the top five.

Pole-sitter Nico Rosberg finishing a disappointing sixth place, with his teammate who lined the front of the grid only managed 12^th place.

The Catalunya circuit saw Alonso take his 32^nd career victory and has pushed the Spaniard into third place in the championship.

Current championship standings sees Sebastian Vettel in first on 89 points, Raikkonen on 85 and Alonso sitting on 72.

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Three-times Formula 1 world champion Sebastian Vettel took it pretty easy at the Bahrain Grand Prix, grabbing the lead early on in the race to face the chequered by a margin of 24 seconds.

With the RedBull racer out in front the whole race, this left the rest of the field battling for position, making this Grand Prix one of the best races for a long time.

Pole-sitter Nico Rosberg was struggling with the aggressive German behind him and had to surrender his first position within the third lap of the race, despite getting a great jump on Vettel at the start.

Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso tried his moves on Rosberg and grabbed second. Unfortunately for the Spaniard it only escalated from here  – with his DRS system not working. Alonso then made two pit stops, taking him out of contention for the race win and enabling Vettel to grow his lead.

On lap 11 Vettel pitted his RedBull machine, putting Paul di Resta in first place, with di Resta juicing decent speed from his Force India. Once di Resta made his first pit stop, it was once again Kimi Raikkonen who drove on his old medium compound tyres and grabbed the race lead.

Before Raikkonen even made his first pit stop, Sebastian Vettel reclaimed his race lead.

With pit stops strategies all in action, the wheel-to-wheel racing began. With the Redbull and Mercedes teams using team orders previously this year to protect their drivers, McLaren let their drivers loose with Sergio Perez and Jenson Button battling out for position.

Unfortunately for Perez he misjudged a battle, causing damage to his McLaren’s front wing.

Australian Mark Webber was making his way through the field, having a great battle with Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton towards the final stages of the race. Webber also was involved in an incident with Nico Rosberg, with Webber proving to be at fault. No penalty was dealt to Webber.

This race saw only one non-finisher, with Jean-Eric Vergne retiring within the early stages of the race.

With all pit strategies aside, RedBull ace Sebastian Vettel took the top step of the podium once again, with Kimi Raikkonen finishing second and stand out of the race Romain Grosjean speeding his way to third place, making it a 2-3 finish for Lotus.

Sebastian Vettel has extended his world championship lead, with Raikkonen trailing by 10 points to the current world champion.

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Who thought you could get through a race and take the win with more racing and less bitching? Believe it or not, team orders were not put in place by any teams at the Chinese Grand Prix, with Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso driving away with the win.

Despite clever pit-strategy from Ferrari, Alonso grabbed the race lead from pole sitter Lewis Hamilton early on in the race and did not look back.

Lotus driver Kimi Raikkonen still managed to grab second after a mid-race incident with McLaren’s Sergio Perez.

The race was full of wheel-to-wheel action, right from the start to finish. The front row of the grid saw Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton gain the race lead, getting a great jump on Raikkonen who was on second.

It didn’t take long though to see the drama unfold as merely five laps in saw the race’s first two retirements, with Esteban Gutierrez slamming the rear of Adrian Sutil’s Force India at the end of the back straight.

It only escalated from here with Webber trying to make his way from the rear of the grid to the front but instead bumped into his sister team-mate Jean-Eric Vergne.

Unfortunately for Aussie Webber, his race ended a short time later as the new left-rear wheel, which had not been properly fitted at the pit- stop fell off, making the Australian come to a stop.

Perez and Raikkonen came together, with Raikkonen hitting the rear of Perez’s McLaren. No penalty was dealt although Kimi would have had cold feet due to the slightly damaged nose of his car.

As the incidents stopped occurring, the race went on and Ferrari was still out in front. Like the leading trio, Vettel completed three stops before hunting down the final podium place-getters in the final five laps.

English driver Jenson Button led a large portion of the race thanks to a two-stop strategy, but was unable to fight to the finish.

Fernado Alonso took his first win for the season, with Raikkonen placing himself nicely in second, with Lewis Hamilton rounding out the top three.

Sebastian Vettel and Jenson Button took fourth and fifth after running the alternate strategy of using the option tyre in the final stint.

The race also sparked a career best for young Aussie Daniel Ricciardo, who finished in seventh place.

After the Chinese Grand Prix, the championship sees Vettel lead by three points to Kimi Raikkonen, with Fernado Alonso now third in the standings.

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If you look up “awkward” in the dictionary, the new definition would be “the Malaysian Grand Prix 2013”. Race winner Sebastian Vettel took the top step of the podium, hurting his Australian teammate Mark Webber after not obeying team orders.

Sebastian Vettel started on pole position for the second time this year, with Ferrari’s Felipe Massa lining up the front row of the grid. Vettel got a great jump, with Mark Webber unusually getting a great start.

The field made it through turn one, with Alonso tapping Vettel into turn two. Although it came back to bite, with Alonso’s front wing collapsing under him, causing him to crash out in the gravel and become the race’s first retirement.

The race was action packed, with the drivers pushing hard on the intermediate Pirelli tyres in the wet weather.

All teams decided on the same pit strategy, with four stops inclusive of race.

With the track beginning to dry out before the first lot of pit stops, Sebastian Vettel was told by the team, “let us know when you want the dry tyre”.

This saw Vettel pit one lap earlier than teammate Mark Webber, with Webber gaining advantage, pulling out in front of his German teammate.

On the same lap, newly signed Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton “accidently” drove through the wrong pits, visiting his old team McLaren! The McLaren team waved it off, saying goodbye as he drove through the correct pit bay.

Lap 14 saw the second retirement of the race, with Pastor Maldonado crashing out due to his damaged front wing, finishing his race in the sand trap.

Bad news then arrived for Force India, with a problem occurring with the wheel nuts in the pit bay. Both Adrian Sutil and Paul Di Resta were later forced to retire from the race.

By mid-race distance, the battle for the front of the field was on like Donkey Kong. Both RedBull Racing and Mercedes filled the top four placings, with the two teams then working the “team orders”.

Now that team orders are legal in Formula One, drivers were told to hold their positions and bring the cars home safely, meaning that Mark Webber will hold the lead with his teammate Sebastian Vettel behind him. Mercedes also told Nico Rosberg to hold fourth position behind Hamilton.

This all changed after the final round of pit stops. Vettel decided that he wanted to lead, with Webber only just pulling out in front of Vettel for first place after his pit stop. Vettel then battled with Webber, eventually taking first place.

With team orders in place, Vettel was told by team boss Christian Horner to not be silly, but passed Webber anyway.

Nico Rosberg from Mercedes obeyed the team orders, frustrated by driving behind his teammate Lewis Hamilton.

Vettel crossed the finish line with his team and Aussie teammate frustrated by his ignorance. Mark Webber finished in second, with Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg rounding out the top four.

Vettel now leads the driver’s championship after taking victory at the Malaysian Grand Prix.