Hola! Como estas! Muy buen, gracias. And I will save any other Spanish for when we hit the Mexico circuit later this year! :) This 10th race on the circuit takes us to a city I want to visit so badly, Barcelona, Spain! And as the teams/drivers gear up for the weekend, some of those teams and drivers are making news! First off, Haas has decided that young Ollie Bearman will race in Nico (on my way to Audi) Hulkenberg's seat for this weekend's race. it has been widely speculated (need to use that word more often!), that Ollie is the heir apparent to Nico's seat for 2025 and beyond, so not too much of a surprise.
Ollie with the look he knows something...:)
A couple of drivers provided some good gossip (it came from thier own lips) with regard to the upcoming race at Silverstone, England. On the issue of how expensive tickets now are to attend Silverstone, Mercedes' driver (for this season!) Sir Lewis Hamilton, seven-time drivers cup champion, basically said things need to change with ticket pricing, as fans of the sport are now being priced out of attending the race. In a similiar vein, Red Bull's Max Verstappen, three time drivers cup champion, when asked about the buzz of how poor ticket sales have been for Silverstone, basically said it's not because he (Max) was winning so many races that is keeping fans away, but that the promoters need to do a better job of giving fans better opportunities to attend the Silverstone circuit. I see a through-line tween the two drivers comments on this legendary race track. Feathers at FIA and F1 have officially been ruffled! We can almost always count of F1 to give us something juicy to "speculate" about! :)
As this race is in Spain, it's that time to post the first picture of the driver that this is his "home race"; and it's none other than our recently freed from his appendix, Carlos Sainz of Ferrari!
Daddy in training, Ferrari's Carlos Sainz!
Onto the practices! P1: Warm weather in the 80's at the track and the track is at least 20 degrees warmer. Commentators are making note of the cross-wind at turn 12, and we've seen a few drivers swing hard out of that turn, so a turn to keep an eye on. Red Flag was up for a few minutes to clear the crack of a piece of debris from the other home country driver's car, Alonso. Ollie got his laps in, and back to F2 for him.....for now.
P2: A Professor Colby note: on a track like this, with the temperature on the track being so hot, drivers HAVE to manage their tyres because if you work the tyres hard on the track in the first 2 sectors, on the last sector, your tyres my have been worn down by the heat and the speed, and , well, lose speed and track placement by the time you finish the lap. So this Barcelona track is very high on tyre degradation. Also, this track is unique in how WIDE some of these turns are, which if not raced properly, rear of the car could snap and send the car and driver into an unpleasant experience. Also, near the end of this practice, Sky Sports main announcer, David Croft (Crofty!), made note of Lewis Hamilton's "Love is Love" helmet and how McLaren and Alpine are also showing big support for the LGBTQ community during Pride month! (Picture Colby beaming when Crofty made that point!) As for P2 itself, a standard practice, hence why I got to squeeze in the above info.
P3: I had seen Nelly open for Janet Jackson last week, but was no expecting for this F1 race to be " Hot in Herrre"! Before the last 60 minute practice started, we had some off track DRAMA! In the McLaren Hospitality suite/building, a FIRE broke out! Everyone was able to escape unharmed, but the building itself is a loss. What was really cool was that all the other teams offered up their assistance to McLaren, offering up space for McLaren's team and sponsors, and to Norris and Piastri. A McLaren crew member was able to snatch up Lando and Oscars race uniforms, but as Lando mentioned, he lost one pair of his racing shoes, amongst other personal items from he and Oscar's "chill room". Onto to P3. This session was pretty standard until the last laps, when some of the drivers gave into their road rage! First, we had Lewis , who thought he had that section of the track to himself, bumping Lance Stroll, who was NOT happy about that impeding- that incident being bumped up to the stewards (judges). Then Lando, minding his own business on his final lap, gets "love-tapped" by Ferrari's Charles LaClerc! Lil Leo will not be happy with daddy for the poor sportsmanship that could result in a grid penalty for LeClerc. Lastly, LeClerc's teammate, Carlos Sainz, decided that he was going to wildly thread the needle between 3 other drivers, he did, but as our commentators shared, "that was messy".
Time for home town driver eye candy before Qualifying!
An earlier pic of Carlos Sainz when he and his appendix were in harmony, before the messy break up this year! (Random WOOF for this pic!)
A note on how Qualifying works: There are three quick races to determine grid position for the GP on Saturday. First quali the last five drivers are cut, second quali again, last five drivers dropped, and 3rd and final quali determines the top ten on the grid and the ever important pole (1st) position. This also applies to the Sprint Qualis, you will just see me use SQ1 to show the difference.
Quali One: On the messiness that happened in P3, for LaClerc and Stroll, they were given reprimands, basically a slap on the wrist. Onto the bottom five: Sargent and Albon/Williams, Riccardo and Tsunoda/ RB, and Magnussen/Haas.Good news is that Zhou of Sauber made his first Q2 placement of this season. Small victories. :)
Quali Two: I have to start this 2nd quali with one of the best lines I've heard from from a commentator this season from Karun about LeClerc after that "love tap" he had with Lando Norris: "LeClerc was as mad as a mosquito in a mannequin store!" I died! As did Crofty, and much of the audience...it is such a Dolly Parton saying! Back to Quali 2, everyone on soft tyres for this quali, which works in a qualifying, becasue it is fastest lap that places you on the grid. Our next bottom five are: Alonso and Stroll/Aston Martin, Hulkenberg. Haas, and both Sauber drivers, Zhou and Bottas. The surprise here is how well Alpine did, as both drivers made it into the top 10, Ocon barely, with an 1:12:109! Quali Three: Top ten grid position and the ever important pole (1st). (PS: I'm still distracted by Carlos eye candy pic- but the work must carry on!). Sadly, no grahic for the top 10, so your top ten grid , from 10 to 1st is: Perez- was better, but had a 3 grid penalty from the Montreal race, Ocon/Alpine, PIastri/ McLaren, Gasly/Alpine, Sainz and Leclerc/ Ferrari, Russell and Hamilton/Mercedes, and Verstappen, just .002 behind Lando Morris of McClaren for pole position! Lando said in post interviews that his might have been his best lap ever, and a lot of folks agree! It is .003 between 2nd and 5th! Great race ahead Sunday!
But first , last eye candy with Carlos!
Can Carlos drive his F1 car to a win like he drives a yacht?
F1 Spanish GP race day! 66 laps. 14 turns. Weekend attendance : Over 280,000. It is windy at the track, and the track itself is hot, so tyre management will be critical. Updates to the grid since quali. Piastri's lap time was deleted, so he starts in 10th, with Alonso jumping up to 9th, and Perez, with his 3 grid penalty from Montreal, is 11th on the grid. Williams made an adjustment to Alex Albon's power unit, overnight, and that no-no has Albon starting from the pit lane. I also learned that from the starting lane to the first turn is an 11 second straight shot, so those 11 seconds could determine a lot. And it LIGHTS OUT! And we have our first lead change in that 11 seconds as Mercedes' George Russell overtakes Norris for the lead, but in lap 3, Red Bull's Verstappen overtakes Russell for the lead, with Norris in 3rd. Exciting start already for this GP! Most drivers have made pit stops to change from the soft to the medium tyres, with Verstappen's Red Bull pit crew making the change in only 1.9 seconds! (2.4 to 3 seconds is about the average) in laps 15-20. Norris now in the lead, with LeClerc 2nd, Piastri 3rd, Verstappen 4th and Russell 5th. Halfway thru the race, and most teams have done their 2nd pit stop, and there have been several overtakes as well. The race is now definitely in the strategy phase, as who and when drivers will take that third pit stop to have the freshest tyres in the last laps of the race to the checkered flag. On lap 35, the leaders are: Verstappen, Russell, Norris, Hamilton, Sainz, Leclerc, Piastri, Gasley, Ocon, and Hulkenberg in the top 10 (points!). Norris has had 3 overtakes so far after he pitted, and is breathing down Russell's helmet, as Norris has the freshest set of tyres at this point in the race! We may have our Overtake of the Day on Lap 36, as Norris and Russell traded places THREE times on this lap before Norris secured position 2. That was some exciting racing, Lando did a GREAT job managing the curves on the turns to beat back Russell!
By Lap 50, the four drivers at the top have done their third pit stop, switching to the faster soft tyres, except for Russell, who is on the hard tyres, and not happy with them. Verstappen leads by 7.305 over Norris, with the two Mercedes, Russell and Hamilton behind. I'm expecting Lewis to overtake George in these final laps as Lewis is on the soft tyre.
It got close in the final laps of the race, but Max Verstappen held off a very disappointed Lando Norris by.2.4 seconds to win the 2024 Spanish Grand Prix! Norris finished 2nd, and for the first time this racing season, Sir Lewis Hamilton reached the podium in 3rd place. Consolation prizes for Lando is that he did get another point for fastest lap, and for the 5th time, was voted Driver of the Day by the fans.
You may have noticed this was the first race this year that there were no safety cars, no flags (except for the checkered flag) and no crashes! Everybody was mostly on their good behavior! Now if you would like to SEE a shortened version of the race I just wrote up, check out TSN's Highlight reel! Ya gotta see that Lando triple overtake!:)
Off to Austria next week for the 2nd part of this three races in a row schedule!
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