[6] Ferrari brought new parts to Barcelona, but Kimi Räikkönen was unsatisfied with the handling of his car, switching back to the earlier setup for the third practice session.

"[8] McLaren arrived in Barcelona with a new dark grey livery in order to "improv[e] its visual impact [...] for the floodlights increasingly used in twilight and night races," a team representative said.

McLaren were yet to score in 2015, but with Jenson Button finishing seventh and Fernando Alonso in eleventh place, they proved to be closer to the point ranks than in previous races.

Romain Grosjean suffered from technical problems on his Lotus, which ended in the engine cover of his car shattering on the start-finish straight, bringing out a red flag.

[13] The third practice session, on Saturday morning, showed that Mercedes' advantage on the softer, medium tyres was less significant than on the hard compound, meaning Vettel was able to lap within two-tenths of a second of Rosberg, who was fastest.

The same applied for Sebastian Vettel, while his Ferrari teammate Kimi Räikkönen was once again unhappy with his setup and recorded his time on the softer medium tyres.

Unlike their teammates, both Felipe Massa in the Williams and Kimi Räikkönen did not have an extra set of fresh tyres, meaning they were caught out by the fast-running Toro Rosso drivers, who took the third row on the grid.

Unlike the top runners, Kimi Räikkönen did not take the medium tyres during his middle stint, but chose instead to run on the hard compound, meaning he would be a force to watch towards the end of the race.

Red Bull, who had a troublesome weekend, qualifying behind their sister team Toro Rosso, made up for lost ground and moved ahead to eventually finish seventh and tenth.

Räikkönen had closed in on Valtteri Bottas and tried to overtake him during the last laps of the race, but was eventually unable to do so, leaving him in fifth position, lamenting his poor qualifying performance.

[22] Race winner Nico Rosberg said he had a "perfect weekend" during the podium interview conducted by Spanish TV presenter Maria Serrat.

At the official post-race press conference, Lewis Hamilton conceded that it had "been a long time since I've had such a poor start" and went on to explain how difficult it is to overtake on the circuit.

He went on to point out that the characteristics of the circuit suited Mercedes more than Ferrari, as they had more downforce and raw speed, stating he was not too concerned with the "bigger than normal" gap, after Vettel had finished 45 seconds behind Rosberg.

[24] Following another difficult weekend and constant problems with their underpowered Renault power units, Red Bull repeated their threats voiced earlier in the season to exit the sport.