Fernando Alonso victorious in homeland Spain

Spaniard Fernando Alonso emerged victorious in front of his home crowd for the second time in his career. Kimi Raikkon came in 2nd for Lotus and Felipe Massa came in third to give Ferrari Team Principal Stefano Domenicalli a beautiful double podium birthday present.

At the start, it was polesitter Nico Rosberg who led the way while his Mercedes team mate Lewis Hamilton started slipping down the field due to brake issues with the car. Vettel, Alonso and Raikkonen soon got ahead of Lewis within couple of laps. Alonso pitted on Lap 9 while Rosberg and Vettel pitted on lap 10 allowing Alonso to get ahead of Vettel on track position. The race was nearly sealed on Lap 13 as Alonso overtook Nico Rosberg much to the cheer of the Spanish crowd and from then on the Spaniard was never really challenged until he experienced a slow punture on the third set used tyres which Ferrari managed to solve by preponing the final stop. Polesitter Nico Rosberg dropped down the order to 6th very quickly once he was off the lead. Massa who started 9th due to the 3place frid penalty made good progress and slotted behind Alonso in 2nd.

Kimi Raikkonen was held behind the struggling Red Bull of Vettel but Kimi managed to get ahead of the Red Bull and started to flyaway chasing down the Ferrari of Massa and Alonso. As Massa pitted for his second stop Kimi moved to second behind the leader Alonso but the Lotus man couldn´t do much to challenge Alonso. 

Vettel was totally in a different race from the leaders and was struggling to find pace while Hamilton dropped down to 15th.

Ferrari managed to quickly salvage the slow puncture on Alonso´s car to prevent any loss of track time and the lead on Lap 49 which cemented the victory for the Spaniard. Alonso reduced pace during the final laps of the race and crossed the line 9.3secs ahead of Kimi Raikkonen who was on a 3 stop stragety. Massa came in third ahead of Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber.

Nico Rosberg held off the challenge from Force India´s Paul Di Resta to finish 6th while Jenson Button made most of the day to finish 8th and ahead of team mate Perez after starting from 14th on the grid. 

Daniel Ricciardo made strong race to finish 10th and ahead of Esteban Gutierrez who too face a 3place penalty on the grid while struglling Lewis managed to hold off Adrian Sutil to finish a bitter 12th after being lapped by the leaders.

Sutil lost time on the pits as his wheel nut cross threaded during a the stop which cost him valuable time and track positions. Romain Grosjean on the other Lotus experienced a broken suspension earlier in the race.