The Spanish Grand Prix is rarely interesting and usually tends to be, as someone on Neowin.net put it, 66 parade laps. However this year it was totally different.

Qualifying was extremely close, with there only being about 0.2 seconds between pole and fifth, and Alonso qualifying in a surprising 2nd. This was already going to make for an interesting race, as odds were that the Renault was extremely light and running a different strategy to most.

Then during the race there were a couple of overtaking moves and quite a few incidents, the biggest of which being Kovalainen’s crash at the Campsa corner. The safety car was out for several minutes as the marshals and FIA medics worked on getting him out the car and checking him out. Once again the strength of a modern Formula 1 car came through, with Heikki coming out in one piece.I was very impressed with Hamilton and Kubica’s race. They both hung onto the Ferrari’s until the finish and showed that maybe Ferrari doesn’t have as big of an advantage as was initially thought.

Alonso also did well with what turned out to be a much improved Renault. I thought Alonso had gone very light on the fuel, to put on a bit of a show for the home crowd, but it turned out he was not significantly lighter than Massa. So Renault have found some actual performance and are probably the fourth fastest team there right now.

Webber had a quiet but good race as well, finishing fifth. I would consider Red Bull to be Renault’s main rival at the moment so we could have some good scraps between Webber and Alonso in future.

Heidfeld was unfortunately caught out by the safety cars. It’s a stupid rule, but no more stupid than the previous free-for-all mayhem that ensued after a safety car went out. It was dangerous and created the same disadvantage as the new rule for some. I think the best solution would be to enforce a 110% lap rule when the safety car is out. Anyone can pit any time they want, but no-one must have a lap 110% of the safety car’s lap. This would both keep speeds low and negate any advantage of pitting under the safety car. Easy to implement too.

Overall it was an eventful race and much more interesting than the usual 66 parade laps of the Catalunya circuit.

Turkey next which is a good track and should provide a good race. It is one of the tracks on Massa’s list of “tracks I can actually drive”, so it will be interesting to see if anyone can beat him there.