In Retrospect: 2008 Spanish Grand Prix

Three weeks have passed since the Bahrain GP, and during this time period, all of the F1 teams have gone back to their bases in Europe to further juice their machines to get every possible millisecond out of their cars.

Ferrari went back to Maranello in prime shape, as McLaren-Mercedes whimpered back to Woking with its tail between its legs. McLaren's woes, however, weren't the biggest surprise that came from the first part of the season.

Instead that prize belongs to BMW-Sauber, who miraculously pulled themselves out of the mid-pack in winter testing to lurching rabidly at Ferrari and McLaren's feet.

Each team came into Barcelona with a little more hope and optimism that the improvements made during the three week interlude would show out on the track.

But after this past weekend, we can see that not much has changed...

Reigning World Champion Kimi Raikkonen of Ferrari, with his ice cool driving style, utterly dominated the Spanish Grand Prix. The flying Finn led Ferrari to their second straight one-two finish this year. Felipe Massa finished 3.2 seconds behind his teammate. Rounding out the podium (and happy to return there) is McLaren's Lewis Hamilton, who was 4.1 seconds out from Raikkonen. BMW-Sauber's Robert Kubica followed closely behind 5.6 seconds behind the Finn.

Hamilton was pleased to step back up onto the podium.

"It's good to be back," Hamilton said during the post race conference. "We have had two bad races, so to get back on the podium is fantastic."

Hamilton himself seemed a bit surprised at McLaren's pace during the race.

"We all seemed to be very close," he told ITV Sport. "I was able to maintain quite a good balance and pace and keep up with the Ferrari's."

Raikkonen felt that Ferrari was securely in place during the race. He commented during the post-race conference that he could have gone much faster if he was pressed to do so.

"There is no point to push it when you don’t need to," the world champion commented. "I think it was closer than we expected, but saying that there were many safety cars, so without them maybe it would have been looking a little bit different."

So what does this all mean?

It means that not much has changed. Ferrari is charging out at the forefront, leading in the constructor's championship by 12 points, and Raikkonen leads in the driver's points by nine.

Except for the mishaps in Melbourne, Ferrari has shown it is the dominant and quickest team out there. A series of misfortunes plagued McLaren in Malaysia and Bahrain, with the grid penalties in Sepang and Hamilton's mistakes in Sakhir.

Also Heikki Kovalainen's jaw-dropping crash this past week in Barcelona impeded McLaren from scoring any more points in the constructor's championship. McLaren still isn't up to par with Ferrari. Even worse for the Woking squad is that BMW-Sauber is lurking right there in their mirrors. Hamilton himself commented on the pressure that Kubica was showing in Barcelona.

Standby for BMW's inevitable first win this year...

The next race is at Istanbul Park, where last year Ferrari finished one-two. That spells bad news for McLaren. Hamilton will have to bring his A-game, and Kovalainen will have to be in tip-top shape after his nasty shunt, which ripped half of the monocoque off.

Rest assured, the prancing horse will not let up.