Spanish GP: Silver Arrows on top!

Nico Rosberg grabs his second consecutive pole position.

Mercedes‘ Nico Rosberg grabbed pole position for the second consecutive race.

Team-mate Lewis Hamilton crossed the line behind the German to top off what has been an unexpectedly good week for the Brackley-based outfit.

Nico set a time of 1.20.718 and his British team mate clocked a 1.20.972.

Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel clocked in third with a 1.21.054 whereas team-mate Mark Webber had a poor qualifying session and eventually finished 8th with a 1.21.570.

Many expected the Ferraris to dominate the race, especially Fernando Alonso but the Spaniard couldn’t do better than 5th finishing behind Kimi Raikkonen, who surprisingly, didn’t get a top 3 considering his excellent consistent lap times.

Alonso’s team mate, Felipe Massa, followed the Spaniard by finishing 6th and Kimi’s team mate, Romain Grosjean, crossed the line behind the Brazilian after a improved performance.

McLaren were supposed to occupy the slots in the middle of the grid but a surprisingly good lap from Sergio Perez gave him a good chance to get the British team starting in the top 10. The Mexican eventually finished the session in 9th, ahead of Force India’s Paul di Resta.

The qualifying session has shown what the Mercedes are capable of, but given the amount of rubber they’ve been shedding throughout the weekend, they’re still the dark horses to win the race. The onus is on Sebastian Vettel to perform and show the Ferraris that Red Bull still have it.

Alonso and Massa will be hoping to capitalise on Mercedes’ tyre woes. Raikkonen and Grosjean will be, too, and given the straight-line speed of the Lotus, they’ll surely put up a fight to the Bulls.