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- The Spanish F1 Grand Prix on Sunday lived up to its reputation as a difficult track to overtake.
- Lewis Hamilton’s win was the 23rd time in 31 races that the pole winner had won the race.
- With two Spaniards at the start, Formula 1 would like to be present in Spain.
The Spanish Grand Prix has no contract for 2022, and this year’s race was a one-off deal to keep the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya track on the F1 schedule.
It is unlikely that F1 will put the race back into action with Fernando Alonso while Alpine and Carlos Sainz Jr. drive for Ferrari. But there are also problems.
It’s a complicated political situation because not all people in Catalonia want to stay Spanish and the country doesn’t necessarily want to pay for a race in a region that tried to tear itself away a few years ago.
The biggest problem, however, is neither the politics nor the difficulty of funding the race. The basic problem is that the track is not good for racing. The Formula 1 drivers like it because it’s fun to drive, but they all say that racing is almost impossible because there is no place to overtake. This year an attempt was made to change that situation by doing some major work on Turns 10 and 11, but it quickly became apparent that F1 drivers thought it was probably worse than before and not better.
Fernando Alonso, right, was 17th and at the end of the row one lap ahead of race winner Lewis Hamilton in Barcelona.
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That begs questions about how the design was decided.
“Turn 10 was probably the only way to overtake next to turn 1,” said Pierre Gasly. “And now there isn’t so much of a large braking zone anymore.”
It doesn’t help that the turn 1 descent isn’t very good even now, as the F1 cars have so much downforce that the braking zones are too short. And this year the competition between the teams is so tight that there isn’t enough difference in performance for one car to pass another.
After qualifying, all drivers said the same thing, some more diplomatically than others.
“It’s difficult to create the delta that you have to overtake when people are separated in hundredths of a second,” said Lando Norris.
“It is important to have a good start as it is very difficult to overtake and easier to defend,” said Charles Leclerc.
“We know that the start is very important here and can have an impact on the race result,” said Max Verstappen. “Of course we focus on that, but we want to keep it clean and it’s a long race.”
Even Spain’s hero Alonso is not trying to cover up the problem.
“It’s very tight and obviously very difficult to overtake in the race,” he said. “But we’ll try to do a couple of good laps and see where we end up tomorrow.”
Alonso finished 17th in the Spanish F1 Grand Prix, one lap ahead of the leaders.
To put the lack of overtaking opportunities in perspective, there are astonishing statistics: 23 of the 31 races held on the track so far, including this year’s race, were won by the driver in pole position. Another five wins went to the driver who qualified second. So only three winners weren’t in the front row. No driver has won the Grand Prix by less than fifth on the grid.
It can be said to be predictable and indeed boring, and some Spanish GPs have been terribly boring in the past, but the strategic fights can be incredible, even if it’s harder to explain to fans the cut and the thrust want from driver dice.
Sunday’s Grand Prix was a brilliant fight, a great strategic thinking competition between Mercedes and Red Bull as both main drivers gave everything they had. Mercedes has outwitted Red Bull.
Verstappen had to admit that the team still doesn’t have the pace to challenge Mercedes at every event. But could we have wished for a better fight on such a difficult track?
“I still love this fight,” said Lewis Hamilton after winning the race. Hamilton knows how good Verstappen is and being able to beat him is a source of great satisfaction.
Another level of Mercedes Red Bull competition came into the spotlight last week when Red Bull announced it had hired five top Mercedes AMG HPP engineers at Brixworth. You will join Ben Hodgkinson, the new Technical Director of Red Bull Powertrains, who will build Red Bull’s F1 engines in the future.
But that’s Formula 1. It’s not always easy to tell the story to new fans because it’s competition that takes place on so many different levels. That is what makes it so fascinating. It’s not just warriors who trade blows.
It’s a rich and complex story.
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