Rate the race result: 2012 Spanish Grand Prix is an original article from F1 Fanatic. If this article has been published anywhere other than F1 Fanatic it is an infringement of copyright.Pastor Maldonado held off Fernando Alonso to claim his first F1 win in the Spanish Grand Prix. The race was rated 8.274 by F1 Fanatic readers, making it the third best of five races this season. Here’s what F1 Fanatic readers had to say: Mphipps was one of many who enjoyed seeing Williams back at the top: Fantastic drive by Pastor and awesome to see Williams back on top after so many years: brought a little tear to the eye! Mphipps There was entertainment all the way down the field: Fantastic, loads of interesting stuff going on. I liked the Ferrari-Williams battle, and seeing Red Bulls and McLarens out of position added an extra element to an already interesting midfield battle. Calum No one predicted Maldonado would win, which illustrates just how interesting this season is: Crazy and unpredictable, just like the whole season. I’ve massively failed in my predictions once again and I’m loving it. Girts Hamilton’s demotion prompted hundreds of comments on Saturday evening, and some felt it might have cost us an even better race: Hamilton’s penalty ruined a little bit. It might’ve been an exciting battle in front had he started in sixth or even tenth. But still a very tense and amusing race! I never thought to see so many overtakes outside DRS zone in Barcelona! Kobayashi on Button and Hamilton on both Toro Rossos were great! Snafu The debate over the tyres continues: Was so looking forward to watching a great fight between Alonso and Pastor but the tyres made Fernando fall back and destroyed a potentially great scrap. paul_E80 Maldonado’s set were three laps older, he played it intelligently, managed his race well and beat Alonso fair and square. Alonso, one of the top drivers simply wasted his tyres early on. This has little to do with Pirelli and pretty much everything to do with a skilled drive by Pastor. Mouse_Nightshirt The tyres were actually the best they’ve been all season. The hard tyres, unlike the softer compounds, perform more or less as they should – they go off, but not at a ridiculous rate, and allow some real racing. Hamilton managed to run a 30-lap stint at the end, and dice with Vettel for a couple of laps. Nigel Bates Should F1 change its tyre strategy? Readers were divided over DRS. Some thought it worked well – Adrian Morse was among those who disagreed: I thought this race accurately highlighted some of the downsides of DRS. With quite a few DRS passes, the attacker was already a car length ahead by the time they got to turn one. Not terribly exciting; otherwise, there may have been more side-by-side battles in the first corner. Adrian Morse What did you make of the Spanish Grand Prix? Have your say in the comments. Previous rate the race results 2012 rate the race results Race Rating 2012 Chinese Grand Prix 8.648 2012 Malaysian Grand Prix 8.542 2012 Spanish Grand Prix 8.274 2012 Australian Grand Prix 7.662 2012 Bahrain Grand Prix 6.904 Spanish Grand Prix rate the race results Race Average rating 2008 Spanish Grand Prix 5.085 2009 Spanish Grand Prix 5.33 2010 Spanish Grand Prix 4.919 2011 Spanish Grand Prix 7.319 2012 Spanish Grand Prix 8.274 2012 Spanish Grand Prix Rate the race result: 2012 Spanish Grand Prix F1 fans' videos from the 2012 Spanish Grand Prix Force India expect more from Barcelona upgrade Top ten pictures from the Spanish Grand Prix Frank Williams praises teams' rescue efforts after fire Browse all 2012 Spanish Grand Prix articles Image © Williams/LAT Rate the race result: 2012 Spanish Grand Prix is an original article from F1 Fanatic. If this article has been published anywhere other than F1 Fanatic it is an infringement of copyright.

Pirelli bring around 1800 tyres to each Grand Prix, but the destiny of these tyres is mapped out long before they arrive at the circuit. The tyres for each race are made in a specific production run before the Grand Prix. They are manufactured at Pirelli's state-of-the-art motorsport facility in Izmit, just outside the Turkish capital of Istanbul. During the production process, each tyre is allocated a barcode provided by Formula One racing's governing body, the FIA. This barcode is the tyre's 'passport', which is embedded firmly into the structure during the vulcanisation process and cannot be swapped. The code contains all the details of each tyre, making it traceable throughout the race weekend with Pirelli's RTS (Racing Tyre System) software, which can read and update all the data.

Awwwww yeah (from speedhunters.com)

This weekend Formula 1 races on the streets of Monaco, the race that all the teams and drivers most want to win. So what’s the secret to getting a good race result in Monaco? We saw that the Spanish Grand Prix was won with thorough planning,... To read the rest of the article, please visit the jamesallenonf1.com website

I’m right in the middle of my coverage from the Eagle Field Drags at the moment, but I want to take a break to do a quick spotlight on one of the day’s stand-out cars. Based on the classic Ford five-window Coupe, to me this is the perfect Hot Rod. It’s no Rat Rod, but the body has just the right amount of patina to ensure you that this is no trailer queen or show car. Then you have the engine bay, which houses a small block Chevy topped with a supercharger and a dual quad carb setup. Based on watching this car get down the Eagle Field track, the blown Chevy is putting down some healthy numbers. The wheel and tire setup is damn near perfect, with wide mags on whitewall slicks in the rear and these race skinnies up front. Note the lack of front brakes as well. There’s just something about perfect about that rear view with the narrowed body and tall rubber. This is why I love Hot Rods. More on the way from Eagle Field! -Mike Garrett More Hot Rod Stories More Stories by Mike Garrett      

Last night's Mad Men was filled with Jaguars. Lots and lots of Jaguars. Let's drool over the cars that will keep the show's impermeable cool intact, even as its characters get on to the uglier years of the ‘60s. More »

Audi scored a 1-2 finish in an accident filled 40th edition of the ADAC 24H Rennen at the Nürburgring. The guys at Radio LeMans made an excellent point sometime during their commentary: Endurance racing used to be something of a turtle vs hare deal, now all the cars a hares and hares that don't break down.  What that means is that to win you have to drive 11/10th all the time and nobody can afford that little extra margin that traditionally was the characteristic of the endurance racer.  When you drive 11/10th, crashes will happen, especially when drivers are looking for any small hole through slower traffic. Even the very experienced like Klaus Ludwig can get caught up There were many accidents that were just plain stupid,  the most outrageous happened at the finish line on the last lap when a Renault Clio slammed into the back of the Manthay Porsche limping across the line. There was also a Cayman driver who completely missed the yellow flags for Bleekemolen's crash on the long straight and managed to spin himself into the aarmco right in front of all the safety workers. Our friend Sergio Negroni's car was involved in a couple of shunts and he himself said it was the scariest 24 he has done so far.  Looking forward to hearing more about it. In the mean time, hop after the jump for your super sized, desktop...heck, poster sized galley of R8 LMS awesomeness courtesy of Audi.

On friday night i tried to kick a traffic cone. The cone didnt go anywhere, and my foot did its best to fold up into the back of my big-toe like it was one of those goofy little one-man tents. A big section of the toe is now black. but fuck all that, Daveo started his GY6 swap; He put the front-end together on Saturday, which went fine apart from the discovery that the horn/start/indicator switches are built into the stock handles, which were being swapped out. Theres probably a solution for that happening, but when I discovered his new brake handles werent actually anodized gold as Id previously thought, I stopped caring. I was there to watch most of the rear end get put together on Sunday. Apart from a bit of agg with the head on this particular GY6 being abnormally huge compared to its American counterparts, and the jungle gymmy nature of the mounting kit itself, its all on track to be sorted out next weekend. There was never any chance I'd try and do this swap on mine before Dave did, but watching him and his Dad work on it just made it so abundantly clear why. The first one out the gate always gets a bit dirty, mounting kit or otherwise. Oh, you ever watched 2 adults bicker at each other for 3 straight hours while building a rocket-sled? Its hilarious.