Barcelona: Teams and drivers emerged from the Spanish Grand Prix with more questions than answers on just who is the Formula One favourite after five races.
Pastor Maldonado's maiden victory gave Williams their first F1 triumph in eight years and the season's fifth different winner. It's the most varied start since 1983 and the 12 teams' inability to get to grips with the Pirelli tyres is one the main reasons.
Sebastian Vettel dominated last year to win the title with races to spare. He looked to have Red Bull back in command after a wire-to-wire victory in Bahrain, but the two-time defending F1 champion was sixth in Barcelona.
Fernando Alonso won the Malaysian GP then dropped off, but his Ferrari returned to deliver the Spanish driver's fourth runner-up spot at the Catalunya Circuit.
McLaren errors continue to haunt Lewis Hamilton, as the British driver was favoured to win from the pole before a qualifying penalty dropped him to last. Jenson Button seems to be scratching his head over why he can't match his teammate's pace since winning in the season-opening Australian GP.
Maldonado has elevated Williams into the mix, while Lotus are also in the running even if driver Kimi Raikkonen — coming off a second straight podium — doesn't understand why his car performs the way it does.
Answers? F1 only seems to be riddled with questions going into the Monaco GP on May 27.
"You arrive in Monaco and you don't know if you will be a winner or if you will be out of the points. That's what we feel at the moment, not only for us," said Alonso, who shares the overall lead with Vettel with 61 points. "It's very strange. We were 57 seconds behind Vettel in Bahrain, and we were lapping [Mark] Webber here. No one understands, probably. Not us, either."
Pirelli's tyres came under criticism from drivers before Spain, with extreme degradation confounding and frustrating the grid.
"Delivering what you want out of those tyres is the next challenge," McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh said. "No one here convinces me that they understand these tyres on a comfortable basis. It's become an incredible feature of this championship and it's creating the extraordinary season we are seeing."
An off-season reshuffle at Williams is paying dividends, although a fire in the team's Spanish GP garage after Maldonado's victory may set it back as the British team's IT equipment and infrastructure was badly damaged.
"I think we've been working so hard from the beginning of the year trying to understand these tyres and to develop our car around the tyres and I think we actually did a really good step forward for this race," Maldonado said. "I think this is the way."
Maldonado has 29 points, while the top eight drivers are within 26 points of each other. Red Bull lead the constructors' championship by nine points over McLaren.
With victories uncertain, teams know consistency, upgrades and improvements are key. But even that doesn't spell success.
"We have probably the most difficult start of the championship in [my] three years in Ferrari, with a car that was not competitive at all, and [now] we finish the first quarter of the championship, and we are leading the championship," Alonso said.
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