Zoom Zoom: Spanish GP 2025! McLaren's smooth weekend, and the return of Mad Max proves costly to him and his team in Barcelona!

Hola Zoomies! Race # 9 on the 2025 curcuit takes us to one of the places I so want to visit, Barcelona, Spain for the last of this 3-leg GP! I'm on a time crunch this weekend, so this may be the shortest recap I've written!

Paddock Buzz: Everyone was on their best behavior. Onto the racing stuff. (little did we know that good behavior was trampled later this race weekend!) Your Driver/Team Grid. Swap Lawson and Tsunoda, replace Doohan with Colapinto.

Did I mention Franco is from Argentina? The eyes give it away!

P1: 60 minutes. Clear skies -air temp 86F, track temp 114F a hot track means tyre degradation! (I'm learning more about the relation tween tyre and track temps than I ever wanted to!). Unlike Monaco, this will be a high-speed track. For P1, we have two rookie reserve drivers getting their training in, Ryo Hirakawa for Haas borrowing Ocon's car, and Victor Martins borrowing Alex Albon's Williams car. Ryo. finds the gravel on turn 10, but was able to get back on track. No further incidents.

P2: 60 minutes. Ollie Bearman had a spinout into the gravel and was able to scoot back to the garage, spent a bit of time in there as the mechanics worked to de-gravel his car. Lance Stroll was having a front wing problem, and also spent a bit of time in the garage. Otherwise no incidents. P3: 60 minutes. Teams are testing the race pace on the Soft and Medium tyres for Quali. Turn's 7 and 10 seem to be where the struggles could be. No incidents, onto Qualifying!

Fernando Alonso of Aston-Martin in his home race this weekend!

A note on how Qualifying works: There are three quick races to determine grid position for the GP race. 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.

Q1: 18 minutes. Track is hot 112F. This is a proper track race, so wider track for possible overtakes for the GP, but this quali is about the fastest lap and pole position. Colapinto has mechanical problems on th last lap trying to get you of the pit lane and onto the track, but does not make it. Bottom five are: Colapinto/Alpine, Tsunoda/Red Bull, Sainz/Williams, Ocon/Haas and Hulkenberg/Sauber.

Q2: 15 minutes. No incidents, so next bottom five are: Bortoleto/Sauber, Stroll/Aston-Martin, Bearman/Haas, Lawson/Sugar-Free RB and Albon/Williams. Q3: 10 minutes for pole and top ten grid position. Came down to the Papaya Boys, with Lando on provisional pole, but Oscar snatched it back, so it's another McLaren 1/2 front row lockout; first time McLaren has had a front row lock-out since 1998! Max in 3rd, Georgie in 4th, Lewis in 5th, Kimi in 6th, Charles in 6th, Pierre in 8th, Isack in 9th and round ing out the top ten is one of our home town drivers, Fernando Alonso! Btw, Lance Stroll, after not reaching P3, DID NOT get weighed as he left the car, a potential severe penalty!

Spoiler Alert! Fernando happy that he finally scored points this season!

Spanish GP! 66 laps. Overcast with mild temperatures. Lance Stroll did not get a penalty, but he will NOT be racing today, due to a wrist injury (which is probably why he did not do the mandatory weigh-in after Q2). All drivers starting on soft tyres , except for Yuki, who is starting from the pit lane on mediums. It's LIGHTS OUT, and Oscar gets a great jump from the starting line, asserting himself as leader on Turn 1, while Max, overtakes Lando for third, and both Ferrari cars overtake the Mercedes cars! Lap 7 finds Albon having to pit to change his front wing, which was damaged on the first lap when his car clipped another. Lap13 sees Lando overtake Max and is now 4.3 seconds behind his Papaya teammate Oscar who is still leading the race. Max pits on Lap 14, comes out in 8th place. Both Ferrari cars have pitted to change tyres, so on Lap 18, Max is back up to 4th. Russell and Ocon pit to change to mediums, as does Norris, who comes out in third on fresh tyres. Piastri makes his first pit stop on Lap 23, and comes out third, so both McLaren's have fresh tyres then current race leader Max. All teams have pitted at this point, and we have a mix of Softs and Medium tyres on track. Lap 25 finds Lawson and Albon tangle, with the result of Albon incurring front wing damage, AGAIN; to the pits Alex goes, and finds out he has been hit with a 10 SECOND TIME PENALTY for the tussle with Lawson! Williams has told Alex to retire the car or a DNF- awful day for Alex!

Lap 29 has Verstappen pitting to change his tyres, so the Papaya boys are now 1-2 in the lead. Max pops out on track tween the Ferrari's LeClerc and Hamilton and is 4th. Observational Note! We are at Lap 39, and the analysts are saying that the top 7 cars, which are the McLaren's, the Ferrari's, The Mercedes, and Max and Red Bull HAVE to pit to change tyres; debate is will Red Bull and Max NOT pit and finish the race on the Mediums he is on, as he only has one soft and one hard tyre set left...hmmm. LeClerc boxes on Lap 41 on new Medium tyres and enters the track in 6th. Russell pits for new Soft tyres and enters the track in 7th. Hamilton pits on Lap 47, awful pit tiem (4.5) comes out 7th. Lap 48 Max does pit to switch to soft tyres, Lando pits on Lap 49 also to soft tyres, Lap 50 Oscar pits to change to soft tyres, and is able to come out and keep his first place position, with Lando and Max making this a race in 2nd and 3rd. All of the top seven have pitted as was predicted.

Bearman and Lawson have been scrapping all day, and nearly threw the whole race off on Lap 53, as during their latest skirmish, Norris and Max got caught up in it (as they have overlapped these two drivers), causing Lando to lose a huge half-second off of Oscar up front, and bringing Max much closer to him. Lap 55 finds Kimi Antonelli's Mercedes car sliding off deep into the gravel on Turn 10, as his power unit decided to call it an early day, so Kimi's day is over (DNF), and this bring s out a YELLOW FLAG, and a flurry of pit stops that are too many to list, the most notable one though, is Red Bull using their last tyres, the Hards, on Max, who seems perplexed by this decision. Yellow Flag off on Lap 60, and we have six laps left of this Grand Prix, and Max has a lockup, swerves, and LeClerc overtakes, but Max thinks Charles banged him. Russell now next to give Max a challenge, as those Hard tyres are NOT working out for Max (clarification: while max and Charlss cars did touch, it was legal, BUT, Russell DID run Max off the track, and Georgie has to give that 4th place back to Max! DRAMA on Lap 64, as Max is FURIOUS at being told on team radio to let Georgie thru, and while Max was swearing like a boatload of sailors, did not see Georgie coming up and they lightly collided! (My post-race notes are going to be interesting!). After all that, Max lets George pass for 4th, as George is reporting damage on the last lap! In the end, the checkered flag goes to Oscar Piastri, with McLaren teammate Lando Norris on 2nd, and Ferrari's Charles LeClerc rounding out the podium! Georgie in 4th, Max in 5th, Sauber's Hulkenberg (!!!) in 6th, Hamilton in 7th, Hadjar in 8th, Gasly in 9th, and rounding out the points, and getting his first point of the season, Alonso (yay!) in 10th!

Oscar, Lando and Charles with the post-race podium champagne spray!

Notes: Stewards have investigated that scrap between Max and George, and have slapped Max with a ten second PENALTY, dropping him to 10th place! Max is also been slapped with a 3 point penalty on his card, and he is one away from being banned from a race! Oscar now has eight consecutive podiums; only two other drivers in F1 history have accomplished that feat. (and 5 wins this season, holds on to first over Lando in the Drivers Championship, while Max takes a big hit, now behind by 50 points in 3rd). Oh, and I just found out that he dedicated this win to one of his sisters, who was at this race, Elie! Aw!

Driver of the Day voted by the fans was (are you ready for this?) Max! Voting concluded before the 10 second penalty was announced! I'm sure this will make Max all warm and fuzzy! (Not)

Fernando Alonso finally getting points was the happy moment of the day for him and his home country fans!

Good race for: Sauber and Hulkenberg, who have scored their highest finish (5th) in a Grand Prix since a very long time. Alpine's Pierre Gasly getting points for Alpine.

Bad Race day for: Alpine, with Colapinto near the bottom, and with Hulkenberg's big points haul, have fallen into last place behind Sauber (this is SO embarrassing!). Alex Albon and Williams. Alex for the above front wing problems, and Williams, who admittedly said their car set-up was not suited for this track. Lewis Hamilton, who did finish in the points, but clearly was not having much fun on the track with both the car and the tyre strategy of Ferrari.

No race next weekend, so mid-June, we start again from Montreal, Canada!