Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton wins Spanish Grand Prix

Lewis Hamilton stormed to his fourth victory of the season by fending off a late attack from team-mate Nico Rosberg in the Spanish Grand Prix at Circuit de Catalunya on Sunday.

Crucially, the result moved the Briton to the head of the Formula 1 World Championship standings for the first time this season.

The two Mercedes drivers continued their dominant start to the season by locking out the front row during qualifying. For a while on Saturday it looked as if Rosberg – who had finished second to his team-mate in the previous three races – might be able to regain the upper hand, but Hamilton charged to his fourth pole position of the season.

Red Bull Racing's Daniel Ricciardo annexed third on the grid ahead of the impressive Valtteri Bottas in his Williams, but no-one could get within one second of Hamilton's pole lap time.

On Sunday Hamilton converted his pole position into an immediate lead. Rosberg slotted into second place ahead of Bottas, Ricciardo and the Lotus of Romain Grosjean, who seized fifth despite a dramatic tyre-smoking lock-up under braking for the first right-hand corner.

Hamilton established an advantage of about two seconds over Rosberg. At the first round of tyre changes, Hamilton had small cause for concern because his stop was slightly slower than his team-mate, but when Rosberg emerged from his pit visit two laps later, the Briton was still in the lead.

However, they were now on different tyre strategies, Hamilton on the softer-compound rubber and Rosberg on the theoretically slower hard variants. The fact the German went two laps longer on his first set meant Hamilton had to work hard to build a bigger cushion before his team-mate switched back to the softer rubber in the closing stage of the race. 

As he tried to push hard, Hamilton complained over the car-to-pit radio that he was suffering from handling issues on his softer tyre. Rosberg's pace in this sector of the race, meanwhile, showed that using the harder compound was not as much of a disadvantage as had been expected.

Hamilton held a lead of just under four seconds when he peeled off for his second tyre change, which again was a comparatively tardy stop by current standards. As with the first stint, Rosberg remained out longer but complained that his harder rubber was beginning to grain, and he was unable to eat into the leader's advantage.

Rosberg changed on to the softer rubber and emerged back in second place, about four seconds down on Hamilton with 21 laps of the race remaining. Attention now focused on whether the German could use his grip advantage to chase down Hamilton sufficiently to mount an attack.

Rosberg set a succession of fastest laps to half the deficit, but a warning from his pit crew to look after his tyres prompted him to moderate his attack slightly. With eleven laps left to run, Hamilton reported that his left-front tyre was beginning to grain, and over the next few tours Rosberg went back on the offensive, trimming the gap further.