Barcelona, Spain – Fernando Alonso gave King Juan Carlos a royal ride, then became the first Spaniard to win the Spanish Grand Prix.
Alonso never was challenged as he won in front of more than 131,000 fans Sunday and was handed the trophy by the Spanish king.
It was Alonso’s 11th career win and third this season, after finishing second to Michael Schumacher in the past two races.
Schumacher was 18.5 seconds behind in second place, followed by Giancarlo Fisichella in third and Felipe Massa in fourth.
Alonso swerved down the final straightaway in celebration and waved both arms to the crowd. When he stopped, the Spaniard jumped on his car and did a dance.
“It was fantastic, a day difficult to forget,” Alonso said.
Thousands of fans wore light blue shirts and were wrapped in light blue flags.
“To race here and race in front of an all-blue grandstand – it is different,” Alonso said.
Competing in his native Spain for the first time as Formula One’s defending champion, Alonso took the lead on the first turn and started pulling away from Renault teammate Fisichella by clocking the fastest laps each time until the eighth lap.
By that time he had a 5.8-second lead over Fisichella, with the Ferraris of Schumacher and Massa trailing. Kimi Raikkonen, who won last year’s race, was in fifth – and the McLaren-Mercedes driver later finished in that spot.
By 15 laps, the lead had increased to 9.4 seconds. The Renault-Ferrari foursome then pulled away from the rest of the field as Raikkonen fell 25 seconds behind.
“You have to understand that you can’t win every race,” Schumacher said. “At certain moments those guys are better than us.”
Raikkonen, who won the race last year, was almost a minute back.
“It was simply not possible to keep up with the Renaults and Ferraris this weekend,” he said.
