2012 Spanish Grand Prix fastest laps

Williams used an aggressive strategy to get Maldonado ahead of Alonso, while Lotus saved their best until last.

Spanish Grand Prix lap times

All the lap times by the drivers (in seconds, very slow laps excluded):

https://www.racefans.net/charts/2012drivercolours.csv

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30	31	32	33	34	35	36	37	38	39	40	41	42	43	44	45	46	47	48	49	50	51	52	53	54	55	56	57	58	59	60	61	62	63	64	65	66
Pastor Maldonado	95.034	90.597	90.382	90.011	90.248	90.37	90.317	90.357	90.743	90.868	92.929	106.213	89.273	89.763	89.437	89.439	89.428	89.454	89.401	90.477	89.389	89.665	90.016	92.91	104.072	87.906	88.273	88.371	88.503	88.514	88.483	88.824	88.785	88.71	89.237	88.904	89.499	89.162	89.393	89.919	92.699	107.214	88.208	88.925	88.526	89.14	87.943	88.884	88.288	88.173	88.181	88.379	88.27	88.327	88.521	88.593	88.686	88.369	88.106	88.551	88.696	88.585	88.84	88.869	89.161	89.735
Fernando Alonso	93.726	90.921	90.202	89.988	90.108	90.132	90.275	90.373	91.164	93.158	105.421	89.149	89.616	89.816	89.646	89.626	89.722	89.613	89.83	90.456	89.599	89.717	90.058	90.295	90.619	93.382	106.61	88.974	88.687	88.734	88.682	88.4	88.501	88.532	88.806	88.899	88.997	88.783	88.944	89.366	89.385	89.918	89.184	91.56	104.395	87.39	89.497	87.429	87.728	88.113	88.183	88.51	88.62	88.312	88.171	88.514	88.473	88.792	88.496	88.783	89.002	88.897	88.941	89.471	89.451	89.598
Romain Grosjean	98.392	92.422	91.513	91.051	91.393	91.143	91.068	91.164	91.393	93.255	107.643	91.31	91.095	90.487	90.617	89.199	90.24	90.023	89.895	90.04	91.159	90.945	90.609	90.477	90.825	92.996	106.894	88.969	89.432	89.838	89.599	89.216	89.369	88.95	90.242	89.097	89.201	89.725	89.604	89.218	89.723	89.056	89.283	88.77	89.214	88.876	88.944	88.919	88.674	89.031	91.58	104.861	86.25	87.038	86.84	86.95	87.048	86.67	86.718	86.46	87.013	86.753	87.058	86.976	87.679	87.852
Kimi Raikkonen	96.119	90.98	90.994	90.427	90.475	90.272	90.389	90.617	90.783	90.812	93.407	106.463	89.775	89.674	89.686	89.779	90.079	89.803	90.078	90.046	89.997	90.37	90.325	90.635	90.415	90.757	93.818	106.359	89.855	88.794	88.852	89.358	88.887	89.243	88.899	88.447	88.773	89.115	89.404	88.995	89.515	89.135	89.134	89.386	89.012	89.485	90.991	93.455	103.843	86.938	87.463	87.53	87.744	87.417	87.057	87.521	87.451	87.362	87.066	87.323	88.203	87.79	87.692	87.245	87.372	87.943
Sergio Perez	124.682	108.452	89.533	89.805	90.186	89.996	90.298	91.865	91.563	91.185	91.903	91.273	92.139	93.003	92.357	94.037	97.059	107.026	89.721	88.605	88.993	89.2	89.537	90.29	90.375	90.077	90.278	90.068	90.557	90.3	90.287	90.965	90.257	90.83	91.118	93.159	94.46
Nico Rosberg	97.175	91.56	91.719	91.427	91.267	91.402	91.132	91.265	93.725	107.496	91.903	91.24	90.495	90.792	90.881	91.743	91.094	90.63	90.648	90.706	91.056	93.532	106.629	90.555	90.65	91.416	90.309	91.85	90.499	90.533	90.426	89.944	90.294	89.936	90.833	89.689	89.72	90.214	90.182	92.95	105.073	88.952	88.926	88.706	88.15	88.378	88.704	88.584	88.871	88.932	88.885	88.416	89.027	88.993	89.218	89.548	89.458	89.731	89.701	91.735	90.525	90.851	91.106	92.647	91.69	92.74
Sebastian Vettel	99.378	92.299	91.932	91.264	91.295	91.21	94.014	106.837	90.971	92.35	90.643	91.504	91.395	90.207	90.456	90.574	90.822	90.761	90.617	90.477	90.946	91.513	90.301	90.337	90.557	90.853	93.096	106.657	89.364	92.457	99.089	88.904	88.989	89.188	89.43	89.467	90.006	89.428	89.435	89.709	90.605	93.828	111.2	89.177	89.106	88.89	88.754	89.25	88.761	88.937	88.715	88.707	88.845	88.583	88.641	88.618	89.011	89.574	88.306	88.182	89.111	89.689	88.099	89.164	87.768	88.468
Michael Schumacher	98.764	92.487	91.827	91.089	91.253	91.377	91.492	91.18	91.379	93.268	106.878	92.294
Kamui Kobayashi	100.542	92.727	91.843	91.27	91.33	91.384	91.362	94.002	110.521	89.979	90.325	90.445	90.758	90.906	90.488	90.423	90.659	90.777	90.424	90.895	90.802	91.143	91.529	92.306	92.636	94.174	106.133	88.882	89.029	89.382	89.743	90.257	89.708	89.566	90.89	90.042	89.542	90.152	90.318	90.501	91.64	106.88	88.458	88.335	88.266	88.568	88.34	88.812	88.674	88.739	88.36	88.434	89.144	89.607	88.446	89.219	89.236	89.662	90.026	90.084	89.214	89.067	89.172	89.858	89.624	90.126
Jenson Button	100.104	92.371	92.074	91.244	91.403	91.315	91.387	91.057	93.752	107.298	91.045	91.372	91.213	90.836	90.402	90.513	90.861	90.684	90.602	90.67	90.986	91.183	90.993	91.865	94.023	106.748	88.84	90.107	90.293	90.759	90.315	90.273	90.926	90.093	90.842	90.862	90.501	94.498	106.205	91.732	88.624	89.171	89.414	89.004	89.346	88.89	89.096	89.101	89.059	88.796	88.832	89.261	89.31	89.553	89.311	89.505	89.545	90.872	89.802	90.22	90.047	90.722	90.894	91.062	90.655	92.052
Mark Webber	101.889	93.312	91.872	91.554	92.138	94.893	108.425	90.746	91.117	91.113	90.677	90.833	90.689	91.789	92.53	92.568	98.688	110.953	89.14	89.631	90.044	89.435	89.513	89.814	89.62	90.387	90.841	90.339	91.991	90.057	90.37	90.625	90.581	90.861	91.057	90.84	91.24	91.434	92.32	94.021	107.455	89.212	89.44	87.857	89.015	88.695	88.761	88.578	88.595	89.261	89.084	89.604	88.782	89.083	89.167	88.654	89.033	89.724	89.13	90.166	89.303	89.198	90.371	90.491	91.322
Paul di Resta	102.348	93.989	92.003	91.863	91.793	92.238	91.438	92.025	94.312	107.028	90.371	90.749	91.313	91.352	91.499	92.342	90.983	90.955	91.089	90.95	91.344	91.174	93.774	109.037	90.446	90.408	90.548	90.082	90.559	90.863	91.927	90.983	91.156	90.606	90.88	91.058	91.28	90.851	92.362	93.077	91.121	93.41	105.997	88.313	88.667	89.017	89.125	89.287	89.563	89.433	89.321	91.925	89.278	89.757	89.426	89.148	89.163	89.225	89.433	89.819	91.15	89.639	90.041	90.056	91.291
Nico Hulkenberg	102.673	93.986	92.328	91.799	92.025	92.01	91.777	91.887	93.53	94.269	107.666	89.992	90.98	91.421	90.773	91.032	92.714	90.905	93.211	106.752	89.318	89.919	89.911	90.126	90.513	91.382	90.487	90.265	92.292	89.86	90.545	90.656	90.635	90.723	91.15	90.818	90.936	91.72	94.503	107.432	89.047	88.953	88.964	89.266	89.289	89.351	89.128	88.912	89.162	89.296	89.054	89.112	89.133	88.918	88.918	89.054	89.225	89.691	89.33	90.012	89.317	89.212	90.346	90.492	91.606
Jean-Eric Vergne	100.893	93.024	92.053	91.529	92.434	91.822	91.962	91.937	92.187	94.749	107.693	90.618	91.347	91.299	91.222	92.237	91.629	90.954	91.026	90.814	91.298	91.193	94.122	108.837	90.076	90.833	90.159	90.143	90.603	90.687	90.046	89.735	90.366	90.644	91.131	90.804	91.163	91.831	94.064	95.295	105.491	88.463	89.009	88.767	89.151	89.066	89.198	89.471	88.862	88.587	89.182	90.025	88.452	88.308	88.642	88.898	88.452	89.028	89.223	89.856	89.628	89.756	91.349	92.664	92.114
Daniel Ricciardo	103.148	93.824	93.015	91.939	92.104	92.091	92.809	91.922	92.001	92.248	94.414	108.496	91.179	91.25	90.643	90.828	90.815	90.635	90.913	90.518	90.784	90.956	91.018	91.508	93.553	106.502	89.611	90.062	90.493	90.573	91.457	90.784	89.6	89.878	90.38	90.76	91.012	91.966	96.177	105.967	90.544	89.221	89.183	88.587	89.145	89.147	88.966	89.054	88.737	88.973	89.834	89.916	90.526	88.961	89.076	89.156	88.707	89.222	89.172	95.835	89.209	89.61	91.82	90.361	90.172
Felipe Massa	101.325	93.53	91.749	91.428	92.37	91.903	91.947	92.031	92.155	94.439	108.336	90.68	91.071	91.372	91.141	92.076	91.949	90.827	91.119	90.794	91.229	91.3	91.454	90.777	90.69	90.587	91.251	94.25	103.661	105.151	88.585	88.737	89.343	89.359	89.711	89.588	89.675	90.803	91.884	91.809	90.235	89.705	89.507	89.42	91.728	108.345	88.448	89.077	89.63	89.513	89.511	91.632	89.346	89.73	89.644	89.334	89.244	89.3	89.313	91.44	89.408	89.587	90.312	90.319	91.233
Bruno Senna	104.152	93.998	93.573	92.377	92.338	92.066	92.193	92.419	92.319	91.822	92.613	92.879
Vitaly Petrov	104.564	94.573	93.28	92.871	92.402	92.369	92.361	92.601	92.802	96.082	113.21	90.804	91.725	91.849	92.534	91.453	91.849	90.979	91.553	91.571	92.901	93.03	92.306	92.556	92.784	92.86	92.831	95.805	110.463	90.477	92.151	90.376	90.258	90.113	90.245	90.381	90.475	93.259	91.145	90.874	91.239	91.304	91.619	94.251	109.036	89.352	89.703	88.773	88.998	89.123	89.551	89.088	88.773	88.818	89.075	89.059	89.007	89.349	89.524	89.79	89.678	90.487	91.009	91.259	91.618
Heikki Kovalainen	103.592	93.851	93.119	92.269	92.958	92.164	92.23	92.312	92.211	92.123	92.534	91.601	96.429	109.822	91.506	91.107	90.901	90.846	91.092	91.001	91.013	91.11	91.745	91.36	91.729	91.968	96.649	110.942	90.56	90.994	90.837	91.274	90.916	92.74	91.261	92.745	90.6	90.836	91.253	91.01	91.172	91.017	96.638	107.695	88.777	89.056	89.267	90.23	89.065	88.715	88.94	89.024	89.076	89.012	88.989	90.394	89.212	89.468	89.482	89.406	89.385	89.732	90.246	90.494	91.352
Charles Pic	106.179	98.319	94.074	93.926	93.784	94.036	93.15	94.999	93.902	94.243	93.916	93.139	93.595	93.447	95.709	110.881	91.987	92.109	92.127	92.082	91.686	91.633	91.889	91.964	93.906	92.07	94.61	111.073	91.136	91.228	91.292	91.468	91.428	91.464	115.726
Timo Glock	105.224	95.399	94.293	93.298	93.083	93.071	93.162	93.83	93.408	94.185	94.745	93.639	94.103	96.215	110.827	91.922	91.658	91.749	92.008	92.504	91.969	92.354	92.085	91.824	92.263	94.688	111.055	91.313	91.198	91.034	91.362	92.193	91.057	91.34	91.417	91.356	91.51	91.772	92.356	91.57	91.762	91.622	92.08	92.113	92.433	93.037	95.71	109.05	89.599	89.801	90.075	89.825	89.768	93.176	94.604	92.742	90.336	90.013	89.946	89.732	91.34	89.803	89.865	91.07
Pedro de la Rosa	106.617	95.841	94.333	93.584	93.601	93.639	94.089	95.072	94.622	97.845	112.641	92.643	94.235	93.219	93.012	94.321	93.669	93.698	96.775	112.71	92.353	92.502	95.332	94.848	92.975	92.953	93.253	96.714	94.448	97.278	96.157	96.181	94.172	94.486	97.531	110.848	91.457	92.013	92.145	92.007	93.459	92.117	94.151	92.089	92.523	92.436	93.694	92.469	92.606	94.641	98.381	115.879	91.384	90.722	92.613	90.97	90.747	92.424	91.165	90.994	91.341	91.669	91.887
Narain Karthikeyan	107.079	96.53	94.192	93.965	93.941	94.255	96.631	94.78	94.853	95.095	97.844	111.811	93.076	93.421	92.903	93.203	93.139	93.215	96.033	93.281	101.167	96.91
Lewis Hamilton	105.471	93.046	92.43	92.365	91.305	91.922	91.114	91.556	91.658	91.227	90.772	90.931	91.314	94.026	108.641	90.747	91.444	90.85	91.041	91.003	90.966	91.337	91.385	91.315	90.581	90.451	91.032	91.855	90.124	90.216	90.284	90.444	90.959	90.954	93.839	107.207	89.664	90.651	91.129	90.644	89.612	89.919	89.647	89.523	89.435	89.341	89.085	89.175	89.111	88.918	88.925	89.054	89.407	89.279	89.317	89.216	89.165	89.169	88.998	89.377	89.528	89.805	90.833	90.02	91.088	92.438

It’s clear from Maldonado and Alonso’s lap times that Williams were confident in their ability to pit earlier than Ferrari and make the tyres last longer.

Maldonado’s final stint was a cool-headed piece of driving. Having used the Williams’ superior speed to good effect at the beginning of the second stint to jump ahead of Alonso, in his third stint after passing Raikkonen he maintained a steady pace while Alonso tried to attack.

With eight laps to go Maldonado asked a little more of the tyres and Alonso was unable to match his pace. Meanwhile Raikkonen was flying, and had the race been a lap longer he surely would have finished second.

Lotus expected to know within the first laps whether they were quick enough to challenge to win, and it emerged that they probably didn’t. Both Lotus drivers ran used soft tyres in their second stint, but these didn’t provide the lap time advantage they hoped for.

But by shortening Raikkonen’s final stint they were almost able to bring him in contention for victory.

“We didn’t have the pace to win today, that much was clear after the first stints,” said director of trackside operations Alan Permane. “We tried to push our stints out and be quick at the end. We were, and it nearly paid off.”

Grosjean’s last stop came even later than Raikkonen’s, and he took 24 seconds out of the leaders over the final 14 laps.

Spanish Grand Prix fastest laps

Romain Grosjean became the fifth different driver to set fastest lap this year. It was the second time Lotus have set fastest lap during a race.

Here’s each driver’s fastest lap:

Rank	Driver	Car	Fastest lap	Gap	On lap
1	Romain Grosjean	Lotus-Renault	1’26.250		53
2	Kimi Raikkonen	Lotus-Renault	1’26.938	0.688	50
3	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1’27.390	1.140	46
4	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull-Renault	1’27.768	1.518	65
5	Mark Webber	Red Bull-Renault	1’27.857	1.607	44
6	Pastor Maldonado	Williams-Renault	1’27.906	1.656	26
7	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1’28.150	1.900	45
8	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber-Ferrari	1’28.266	2.016	45
9	Jean-Eric Vergne	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1’28.308	2.058	54
10	Paul di Resta	Force India-Mercedes	1’28.313	2.063	44
11	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1’28.448	2.198	47
12	Daniel Ricciardo	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1’28.587	2.337	44
13	Sergio Perez	Sauber-Ferrari	1’28.605	2.355	20
14	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	1’28.624	2.374	41
15	Heikki Kovalainen	Caterham-Renault	1’28.715	2.465	50
16	Vitaly Petrov	Caterham-Renault	1’28.773	2.523	Set on 2 laps
17	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India-Mercedes	1’28.912	2.662	48
18	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	1’28.918	2.668	50
19	Timo Glock	Marussia-Cosworth	1’29.599	3.349	49
20	Pedro de la Rosa	HRT-Cosworth	1’30.722	4.472	54
21	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes	1’31.089	4.839	4
22	Charles Pic	Marussia-Cosworth	1’31.136	4.886	29
23	Bruno Senna	Williams-Renault	1’31.822	5.572	10
24	Narain Karthikeyan	HRT-Cosworth	1’32.903	6.653	15

2012 Spanish Grand Prix

Browse all 2012 Spanish Grand Prix articles

13 comments on “2012 Spanish Grand Prix fastest laps”

sw6569 (@sw6569)
13th May 2012, 23:39
Bizarre that the car with the fastest lap (by over a second!) that had no technical issues, only managed to finish 3rd and 4th. What a strange season this is
1. Kimi4WC
  14th May 2012, 5:29
  I think most teams should strip down their front wings like Grosjean, there is a second to be found!!!! :)
substructure
14th May 2012, 4:13
5 different fastest laps too! This season is great fun…
Kimi4WC
14th May 2012, 5:28
Grosjean’s front was wrecked on both sides still he puts a fastest lap in the end. Front wing over rated? :)
AdrianMorse (@adrianmorse)
14th May 2012, 10:09
I think the lap chart suggests that Hamilton might have been able to match the pace of the front runners under identical tyre situations. If you compare the end of the second stint of Alonso and Hamilton, you see both drifting in the low 1m30s (with Alonso having a few laps more fuel onboard but a few laps less on his tyres).
With that in mind, I think the fastest way to cover the final 30 laps would have been to make another pit stop. Hamilton might have been able to do a series of mid-to-low 1m28s rather than the tentative 1m29s he was putting in, and then win even more time over his own schedule with a fresh set of tyres for the final, say, 13 laps, when his lap times were creeping back towards the 1m30s. Just look at how much faster Raikkonen is in the final stint! He wins about 2 seconds per lap on Hamilton for about 18 laps long, that’s a huge amount of time!
Of course, there are one or two downsides to making an extra stop:
– I do not remember seeing Hamilton being stuck in traffic when he came out of the pits at the beginning of his final stint, other than him passing the two Toro rossos, so I don’t know why he was so slow in the first laps of his final stint. Just compare Maldonado laps and Hamilton’s laps from the starts of their respective third stints:
Maldonado, lap 26-29: 27.91, 28.27, 28.37, 28.50
Hamilton, lap 37-40: 29.66, 30.65, 31.13, 30,66
If those laps were planned as ‘bringing the tyres in slowly, then that cost him around 10 seconds! Maybe he was just stuck behind a Force India or something, I don’t remember. The effect was that he came out way behind Rosberg, rather than ahead of him.
– He had no new tyres left after his second stop, so he would not have benefitted from a late stop as much as Raikkonen and Grosjean did.
– Given McLaren’s current hot streak of operational errors, visits to the pits ought to be minimized.
Of course, I could be wrong and the McLaren just didn’t have the pace today to compete with Ferrari and Williams, but the first part of the race suggested that did.
1. dkpioe
  14th May 2012, 11:40
  first part of the race suggested he was passing much slower cars with a much faster car. after his first stop, he was back in the race for a top 5 finish i thought, especially as a couple top cars fell out and cars infront of his were slower in qualifying, but he did nothing great after that apart from reovertaking slower cars, i think he could have finished top 5 with the right strategy, not leaving 30 laps for the final set of tyres.
  1. Spanky Speed (@spankyspeed)
    14th May 2012, 17:45
    Top 5 finish for Hamilton? How? Compare the Hamilton lap times with the Vettel lap times. Vettel was consistently faster and finished 6th.
    1. Kimi4WC
      15th May 2012, 0:18
      Yeah, there is such denial regarding Hamilton this weekend. He did have a good race and maybe should win A Sympathy Award. While Vettel had a more impressive race all things considering. (But nothing to compare to top 4)
Spanky Speed
14th May 2012, 10:41
It’s quite remarkable that Grosjean as well as Räikönnen improved their lap-times by 1.5-2s after their last tyre change (hard to hard). The same happened in Bahrain. Looks like the Lotus performs the better the lighter it gets. If it continues like this I predict Lotus will claim the constructors championship. They will continue to score high with BOTH cars. Ferrari as well as RB both have the problem of a too large performance spread between the two cars/drivers. Let’s see if McLaren can get their act together.
In Bahrain Vettel was the only other driver who matched Le Lotus lap times. The same happened again in the last laps of the Spanish GP.
Dan Thorn (@dan-thorn)
14th May 2012, 12:06
What strikes me is that Maldonado set his fastest lap on only lap 26 and it was still good enough for the 6th fastest of the race. The Williams has some serious pace, you’d have expected many drivers to beat that time on lower fuel nearer the end of the race. Also shows what a good job Pastor did to take the lead during the pit stop phase.
1. Jeanrien (@jeanrien)
  15th May 2012, 13:06
  For those who want, interesting time at http://www.fia.com/en-GB/mediacentre/f1_media/Pages/timing.aspx
  Funny to see that Kovalainen fastest sector time are very closed (if not beter for sector 3) than Hamilton fastest sectors and the RedBull have a decent speed during race
AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner)
14th May 2012, 13:49
Fastest lap by over 1s? Wow. They must be frustrated, knowing they have the fastest car out there but not being able to apply it when it matters.
Petrov scored his fastest lap twice too, I bet watching side by side videos of that would be pretty interesting.
Todfod (@todfod)
15th May 2012, 14:26
It’s amazing how Felipe is consistently 1 sec off his teammate in quali and now in the fastest lap of the race as well!
Hats off to Felipe for his consistency. Being off the pace by the same large margin requires talent as well..