Not since Michael Schumacher scored his first victory as a Ferrari driver in 1996 has the Spanish Grand Prix been a wet race. And this weekend’s race is set to be dry for the 20th year in a row.
The weekend may not be entirely precipitation-free, however. The local meteorological office guarantees a sprinkling tomorrow afternoon while the cars are on track for the second practice session and official FIA forecaster UBIMET concurs with this view.
Teams will therefore consider bringing their race simulation runs forward to the first practice session. With many also expected to bring significant upgrades for testing – notably Forec India – the Friday morning session is likely to be hectic.
There is a chance of further rain on Saturday evening or early on Sunday morning but at present qualifying and the race are unlikely to be affected. Cloud cover will keep a lid on air temperatures which should creep past 20C on both days. By Sunday afternoon the wind will be starting to pick up which could catch a few drivers out around the Circuit de Catalunya’s exposed, high-speed corners.
For more updates on the track conditions during each session keep an eye on F1 Fanatic Live and the F1 Fanatic Twitter account.
Location of Circuit de Catalunya
See the location of every race on the 2016 F1 calendar here:
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Todfod (@todfod)
12th May 2016, 10:08
I’m really craving a wet race, especially on boring race tracks. If not a wet race in Barcelona, then hopefully one in Monaco
Uzair Syed (@ultimateuzair)
12th May 2016, 18:39
A wet Monaco would be amazing! Something we haven’t seen after the 2008 race!
The Blade Runner (@)
12th May 2016, 10:21
Excellent! I’m going to this one so will take the factor 15 with me :)
ColdFly F1 (@)
12th May 2016, 10:27
Can a photographer help me to analyse that top picture.
I’m wondering how to get the car/stands/bottom-part-of-the-tyre in focus, whilst the P ZERO decals are blurred.
– can’t be motion, because then the whole tyre should me the same;
– and weird to only have the top part of the tyre extremely blurred if it is out of focus range (even with a wide angle when the lens is close to the top of the tyre)
Or did somebody at Honda/LAT photoshop the image to get Pirelli clearly visible.
R0b3rt
12th May 2016, 10:56
I think it’s similar to dragster tyres (but less extreme), e.g. in this video:
https://youtu.be/Lt6iltuxD48?t=2m4s
The part of the tyre that makes contact with the ground lags behind because of friction and because tyres are not solid.
glacierre (@glacierre)
12th May 2016, 11:28
Actually the top of the tire moves forward, while the bottom of the tire moves backwards. And unless you have wheelspin the contact patch has near zero speed respect to the ground (so, the linear motion of the contact patch is ‘minus car speed’) while the top of the wheel moves at 2*car speed.
R0b3rt
12th May 2016, 12:09
By your logic, the effect seen in that pic would be very common. It’s just caused by the difference between the rotational speed of the top and bottom of the tyre at the moment that pic was taken, just as Alonso hit the throttle. (See my previous comment.)
glacierre (@glacierre)
12th May 2016, 15:30
I would expect that significant differences of rotational speed would come together with significant (visible) deformation of the tyre (as in your video). Pirelli should read P’r’l’i, and it doesn’t.
The linear speed difference you get just in anything that rolls, and I was more addressing coldfly comment ‘can’t be motion, because then the whole tyre should me the same’, which is not true, the relative speed of the tyre surface respect to the camera depends on which part of the tyre you look at.
R0b3rt
12th May 2016, 12:23
I mean, I don’t dispute your physics, but they don’t explain the effect seen in that photo.
Arahones
12th May 2016, 10:30
Every F1 website seems to predict rain on friday, but every significant official weather forcast says it will be dry. I’m putting my money on a complete dry friday, as el tiempo predicts no rain at all in Barcelona and Montmeló.
http://www.eltiempo.es/montmelo.html
PorscheF1 (@xtwl)
12th May 2016, 10:31
If either Bottas, Ricciardo or Verstappen wins this race, he’ll be the tenth different winner in ten GPs.
Sven (@crammond)
12th May 2016, 12:56
The 1996 race had some other interesting aspects apart from Schumacher´s dominance. E.g. a dozen drivers ending their race by spinning into a gravel trap on their own. Wet races have changed since then. Only about 2 or 3 would be out of the race today, at the same track, just different run offs…
And by the way, I thought it was kinda funny when Brundle only needed to finish for a good result, and then he ended up taking a technical DNF in a race where that seemed quite an extraordinary reason for retirement.