The Undercut: Can Red Bull snatch another win in Barcelona?
And a quick round-up of the F1 news ahead of this weekend's race in Barcelona…
So here we are, at the start of the European F1 season (and don’t give me any of that ‘Azerbaijan being in Europe’ nonsense) with the Spanish Grand Prix at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
We’ve had a few great long-haul races to start the year - bonkers Baku for one - but from now until the Italian Grand Prix in September, we are nicely ensconced in the heartland of F1.
Yes, I know we go off to Canada in June but Montreal is effectively European, just a bit further away.
I digress a little, so back to the matter in hand, the 60th (depending on how you count them) Spanish Grand Prix.
While we are unlikely, given its layout and general lack of solid things to hit, to have an Azerbaijan-type thriller, we do still get the occasional belter here, most recently in 2016. On that occasion, the Mercedes pair of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg somewhat hilariously took each other out on lap one, giving Red Bull debutant, Max Verstappen the green light for his first win in F1.
Another repeat of 2016 on the cards?
Young Max comes here now, under something of a cloud and with a point to prove (and a few to score) after a few too many errors since Melbourne, most notably the race ending collision between him and teammate Daniel Ricciardo last time out in Baku, though the jury is divided as to which of them should take the majority of the blame for that one.
With Hamilton oddly out of form and Sebastian Vettel’s Ferrari team prone to occasional strategy cock ups, a Red Bull win here is not a bad bet and the perfect chance to reboot their season.
Talking of a bad bet, hopes are seemingly not high for a home win for Fernando Alonso, his last here being five years ago. For weeks we have been hearing about the raft of upgrades coming at this race, including a radical new nose, for the disappointing MCL33, with Racing Director Éric Boullier saying we should see the ‘real’ McLaren here.
Real bad or real good? Alonso doesn’t seem so sure, seemingly with his hopes on the upgrades of other teams new bits not working, rather than his coming up with the goods.
The bookmakers seem to agree. Paddy Power offer far better odds on Vladimir Putin attending Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding (66/1) than on Fernando winning on Sunday (300/1).
Alonso fans, save your money...
Talking of winless streaks, Kimi Räikkönen - surely bound to win a race soon given his current form - could be the new owner of a long-held record.
Former Williams and Benetton driver, Riccardo Patrese, went 98 races between wins, precisely the number Kimi is now on. Though the chances of Ferrari doing much to help him get another victory on the board look a tad dubious.
When Kimi last won, in Australia 2013, Max Verstappen was still in school…
Still, lack of wins aside, at least Kimi is something of a points scoring machine, unlike Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson, who faces an potentially embarrassing prospect this weekend.
If his rookie teammate, Charles Leclerc, gets an eighth place or higher finish and Ericsson doesn't score, he will have outscored in five races (12 or more points) what Marcus has notched up in eighty (a paltry 11 points).
Yes, Marcus spent much of his first season in a Caterham so we can forget those races but to be outscored so soon is either going to be perceived as an indication of Leclerc’s brilliance, or his own lack of it. We’ll have to wait and see.
Leclerc, yesterday.
Elsewhere, Force India don’t seem that enthused either about their upgrade package, while it will take a miracle to drag Williams out of their current rut.
Haas though, having thrown away a huge amount of points on their travels, need to prove that this fourth fastest car thing actually works for them. No more schoolboy errors needed, even if they do fancy pinning the blame for their mishaps on poor old Ericsson.
As mentioned in our Azerbaijan preview, Ferrari were planning to stick mirrors on their Halo device and whoopee, they’ve only gone and done it. The most impressive thing is how they’ve managed to make something that was already hideously ugly, even more so.
That takes a special kind of genius.
My eyes! My poor eyes! (picture via @AlbertFabrega on Twitter).
However, F1 isn’t a beauty pageant (sadly) and there are no points for being pretty, so if Vettel can bag another win, he’ll be more than happy and that long-awaited Ferrari title will be looking a little more likely.
So, what have we had elsewhere in the F1 news this week?
We started off of course, and unless you reside in Pyonyang you won’t have missed this, with Fernando actually winning something.
Well, him and two other blokes to be more accurate, who won the 6 hours of Alonso at Spa.
Though, and this may be down to my lack of understanding of the World Endurance Championship, he won a race that is effectively between a handful of F1 cars and the rest being of F2 (and below) standard, so it really would have been a bit of a surprise if the best driver in the world (apparently) didn’t win.
Still, if it keeps him happy, that’s all that matters.
Midweek brought the news from over the pond that we may well have a Miami Grand Prix in 2019.
Possible Miami circuit layout. Some 90 degree turns and two long bits. Yawn.
Most in F1 seem up for the idea but many, including Lewis Hamilton who offered to design it, found the mooted layout rather uninspiring. That aside, Lewis seems happy at the prospect of racing in Miami though he joked that there are too many distractions (of the female variety) for him.
You’ll notice that the track goes past a Victoria’s Secret store - hopefully the Halo will stop him spotting that.
On that saucy note, we’ll wrap this up, see you in the DriveTribe chat channel live during the race and on over on Twitter all weekend with me @GrandPrixDiary.
Cheers!
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