Pastor Maldonado won the Grand Prix of Spain Sunday morning, thus becoming the first Venezuelan driver to win a Grand Prix and scoring a race win for Williams for the first time since Juan Pablo Montoya won the Brazilian GP in 2004.
Fernando Alonso was second for Ferrari, just holding off Kimi Raikkonen in a Lotus. Raikkonen's teammate, Romain Grosjean finished fourth for Lotus, followed by Kamui Kobayashi (Sauber) fifth, Sebastien Vettel (Red Bull) sixth, Nico Rosberg (Mercedes) seventh, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button (eighth and ninth for McLaren) and Nico Hulkenburg, tenth for Force India.
Maldonado, the 2010 GP2 Series champion, is the fifth winner in five Grand Prix races in 2012. Button, Alsonso, Rosberg and Vettel previously won races in Australia, Malaysia, China and Bahrain.
Spain marked the beginning of the "European" season, with Monaco scheduled in two weeks and Canada on June 6.
Maldonado had started from pole after Lewis Hamilton was disqualified and pushed second-place starter Alonso almost off the racing surface in the run down to Corner One at the start. But Alonso kept his foot in it and took the lead after the Venezuelan had to back off.
It was a gamble by Williams to bring Maldonado in early for what proved to be a lightning quick second pit stop. At that point, Lap 26, he then ripped off a remarkably quick "out lap" and took nearly a seven-second lead over Alonso, who had pitted a lap later.
Maldonado was never headed after that - although there was concern as the laps wound down (and Alonso closed in, although he never really got that close to the leader) that Maldonado might pull a repeat of Australia when, having sixth place in the bag, he pushed too hard on the last lap and crashed.
He apparently learned his lesson and drove flawlessly to the finish in Spain.
The other Williams, driven by Bruno Senna, was rammed off the track by Michael Schumacher's Mercedes as both approached Corner One.
It was a highly entertaining Grand Prix with plenty of passing and lots of hard racing.
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