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Race 1
Rossiter DNS - looked like a collapsed rear N/S wheel bearing - the wheel almost fell off on the green flag lap.
Hamilton shoots off from the start as expected, but a radical change to Spencer's car sees him defend aginst the fast-starting Lloyd and then pull a gap over Lloyd's evil-handling newly-liveried red car. Spencer then chased Hamilton down, setting fastest lap on the way. He got close a couple of times but was unable to make a pass. They were both 4/10ths quicker than 3rd fastest man, Lloyd.
Hamilton made a couple of mistakes as Spencer started to close, and reported having a collapsed damper after having made a mistake which dropped him off a kerb a number of laps into the race, but was still able to manage rapid laps to the end of the race to keep ahead of Spencer, although Spencer was right under his gearbox on a couple of laps.
Some reports say Hamilton's purported damper problem was on lap 9 and others say it was on lap 2, which would be surprising as he set his fastest lap (1:20.1) on lap 4. Bearing in mind Lloyd could only manage a best lap of 1:20.5, and all the quick laps were at the beginning of the race, Hamilton was still very quick at 1:20.4 on lap 9 and 1:20.7 on the penultimate lap - a time which even then was 5th fastest. Hamilton's set-up seemed to be quick for a few laps at the start, but (notwithstanding the reported damper problem) not so quick towards the latter stages of the race.
Jiminez stayed 4th just behind Lloyd, with Murphy making a great start to jump into 5th, where he held up Sisley Storckenfeld and Conway and DiResta for the whole race.
Tomorrow, I expect Hamilton to retain his pace, but if Lloyd can take advantage of the lessons learned with Spencer's car, and with Rossiter having new tyres, it could be interesting. Hamilton cannot afford another DNF, and might not fancy a few wheel-to-wheel encounters, so it may be that his advantage is eroded tomorrow.
Lewis takes over the championship lead with Lloyd 2nd.
You have to say that Lewis is looking very strong now with 3 consecutive race wins. I do hope that Alex's run of bad luck (the last 4 race weekends) is now over and that Motaworld's much-vaunted engineers can find the key, because, trying my best to lay any partiality firmly to one side, I genuinely don't believe anyone else can stop Hamilton, not even the 2 Fortec cars.
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