Spanish Grand Prix Preview

The Formula One Grand Prix World Championship makes a stop in Spain next week, after four international races away from the friendly confines of Europe and for the next Formula One stop on the venue, Barcelona Spain. The first four contests haven’t been the predictable events that we were expecting and they don’t seem to have any perceptible patterns, so the results at the Spanish Grand Prix and the Circuit de Catelunya are anybody’s guess. There are only a few short days to go and the drivers are gripping their steering wheels in anticipation of competing on a track with challenges that will certainly favor some drivers and setups and penalize others.

Formula One drives back to the Europe and the Spanish Grand Prix of Barcelona

Tire preservation and usage will tell the tale at Sakhir; it’s an animal of a different sort than Melbourne or China, where tire degradation of the favored super-soft tires had drivers and teams migrating to medium tires. At Sakhir mediums will take longer to reach the temperature which is best for traction and will have less grip while doing this and also once up to racing temperature than the super-soft tires. This will mean the drivers will all try to go for traction and the super-soft tires until they’re forced to switch, to try to get as many fast laps as they can. The driving will be in the techniques and setups some cars use, since this allows some cars tires to last longer and run faster, so watch for this aspect when watching the race.

The drivers and cars to watch as you’re sipping your drink and munching on a snack all qualified pretty fast and have setups and cars that have shown to be suited well to the Circuit de Catelunya and the heat of Spain.

Jarno Trulli and Timo Glock are one; two on the starting grid for the first time since 2002, their Toyota powerplants seem to run good in the heat, despite a brake problem that didn’t seem to effect Trulli’s time and an electrical issue that slowed Glock’s car for awhile during free practice.

Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber had mixed results, with Vettel the quickest in the first and second qualifying sessions, but ran a little slower in the third to be edged out by the Toyota team. Webber had a confrontation in the first corner with Force India’s Sutil that ended with the German being penalized three grid places.

The Brawn team didn’t run as fast as they were expecting, with both Button and Barrichello complaining of grip problems, and failed to take the pole position, something they clearly had expected to at least compete for.

Image: Newscom