The Pre-Race Thoughts Series: Spanish Grand Prix

Hola! Welcome to my first blog post for the ‘Pre-Race Thoughts Series’. For this mini-series, I’ll be discussing some of my favourite to least favourite tracks of the season, starting with the Spanish Grand Prix held at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. This track seems to not be a fan favourite, with many spectators claiming it to be a ‘dull race’ and although I must admit it is one of my least favourites, this is a challenging track. The 4.675km, high downforce circuit, is made up of a high speed first and second sector, with a twisty third sector, resulting in a total of 66 laps. The first sequence of corners provides an opportunity for overtaking, with that being said, turn 3 can be quite tricky due to the high speeds putting stress under the front left tyre. Turn 4 needs huge confidence on the way in, going early on the power and huge traction on the way out. Turn 7 and 8 are challenging as drivers need to master their understeer on the way in and oversteer on the way out. The famous turn 9, one of the fastest corners in Formula 1, inevitably leads to many driver errors yet the Scuderia Ferrari driver, Carlos Sainz, claims this to be one of his favourite corners. Turn 10 has seen some re-profiling this year, returning to the closer style of the original turn 10, meaning overtaking may be challenging here. The final sector of the race is all about nursing the tyres and focussing on finishing the lap with very little to no mistakes. These corners are all about keeping the rears intact, keeping traction, and allowing some late braking through the chicane at turns 14 and 15. Then it’s an easy flat out, full throttle round turn 16, down the long pit straight and into the second DRS zone to conclude the lap.

As expected, it has been a hot and dry weekend so far with track temperatures scorching up to 45 Degrees Celsius, which makes for an interesting qualifying and potentially an even more interesting race. Due to the nature of the race, being on the front row or at least top 5 is super important if you’re aiming for that podium finish. Although this grand prix may be deemed unentertaining in terms of the racing (overtaking, driver battles etc.), the drivers are under immense pressure due to the track temp, tyre degradation and driver technique is really a make or break at this track.

I thoroughly enjoyed today’s qualifying session. Sir Lewis Hamilton did an absolutely superb job of not only claiming pole position, whilst clearly struggling in Q1 and Q2, but making history by securing a milestone at his 100th pole position in Formula 1. Hamilton outshines and outqualifies his teammate once again, despite Bottas being a tenth ahead in all three sectors on his flying lap in Q2, he only bagged P3. As mentioned, Hamilton initially seemed to be struggling and a debate arose on whether he was out on used tyres. If so, was this strategic? To receive dividend in tomorrow’s race perhaps. He still came out on top regardless.

It’s the return of the cursed second seat at Red Bull. Verstappen pulled out an astonishing flying lap in Q2 at 1:16.922, being nearly half a second clear of Bottas’ time. If Verstappen pulls out that pace tomorrow, there is no doubt that it will be an extremely competitive race. Unfortunately, he was unable to carry the momentum through to Q3 yet still managed to split up the silver arrows and take P2. In terms of Perez, he seemed to be quite mediocre. Great on some laps yet not so great on others. However, it was turn 13 that caught him out, spinning due to turning too wide resulting in a disappointing P8 for the Mexican. In Perez’s defence, he later revealed in a post qualifying interview that he was nursing a shoulder issue, and this affected his performance.

McLaren’s Lando Norris has been performing exceedingly well this season, putting him third in the driver’s championship. With only 2 completed F1 seasons under his belt, Norris’ craft is what pits him above some of his other competitors. Q1 saw Norris caught up in heavy traffic at the final chicane caused by Mazepin, ruining his flying lap. However, this incident was detrimental to the remainder of his qualifying session as he had to use a second set of new soft compound tyres he had been saving for the top-10 shootout. Norris seemed to have bounced back in Q2, using the extremities of the racetrack in order to achieve great lap times but with only one set of new tyres to work with, P9 was the best the Briton could manage in Q3.

Will it be a HAM VER BOT podium again? I think so.