What do Red Bull have in store with their much-vaunted Spanish Grand Prix upgrade?
And will F1 hit its target of lapping five seconds quicker at the Circuit de Catalunya?
Here’s this weekend’s big talking points.
Will Red Bull’s upgrades make it a three-way contest?
The team which most people expected would make the biggest gains from Formula One’s new technical regulations have disappointed so far. Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen have gone into each race weekend knowing fifth place is the best they can realistically expect from a car which is 1.4% off the pace of the front runners.
However that may all change this weekend as the team is bringing its first significant chassis and aerodynamic upgrade of the season. Will we see a drastically different RB13 or has Adrian Newey and his team envisaged another subtle evolution?
The biggest challenge the team appears to face is how to recover the performance it lost due to off-season clarifications on the rules regarding sophisticated suspension systems. The TAG Heuer-branded Renault engine remains a weak link too, but one of the biggest surprises this year is how a team with such immense resources has failed to keep pace with its top rivals.
If that doesn’t change this weekend, they can forget about collecting any championship silverware this year.
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Can Force India unlock their potential?
The team has been served very well in the meantime by both its drivers. The more experience Sergio Perez has led their charge while Esteban Ocon, who’s been an F1 driver for less than 12 months, has also collected points at every race. But they’ll be hoping their life gets a bit easier from this weekend.
Raikkonen the odd man out
Unless Red Bull deliver the goods there are at present four cars in the field capable of winning races. And the only one that hasn’t so far is Kimi Raikkonen.
As his team mate Sebastian Vettel has generously pointed out, Raikkonen’s season to date would be looking rather better but for a few problems here and there. After all he came within a few hundredths of starting from pole position in Russia, and from there he might have found a way to hold Valtteri Bottas back.
But the points gap between the Ferrari and Mercedes drivers tells its own story. Raikkonen came close to a win here last year, and with another contract renewal discussion coming up it’s time for him to deliver.
A new experience for fans
The change can be seen on the cars themselves, which now feature clearer driver identification graphics including the abbreviation of their surnames plus their flags.
There’s much more for fans to do around the track as well with a host of new fan experiences announced today. Is this the beginning of a new fan-friendly era for F1?
F1’s new cars face their big test
As has been pointed out several times already, the Spanish Grand Prix is the litmus test for whether F1’s plans to make the cars quicker have worked. The target is straightforward: if anyone can lap below 1’19.681 this weekend they will have achieved their aim of reducing lap times by five seconds at the Circuit de Catalunya compared to 2015.
Will it happen? Mercedes suggests not as the biggest gain seen so far this year is 4.1 seconds. However Catalunya’s many quick corners should mean we see a greater lap time gain than that – possibly as much as the hoped-for five seconds. During testing Pirelli predicted the target will be hit:
- F1’s ‘fastest cars ever’ may not hit five-second target – Mercedes
- Pirelli predict record-breaking 1’17 Spanish GP pole time
Are you going to the Spanish Grand Prix?
If you’re heading to Spain for this weekend’s race, we want to hear from you.
Who do you think will be the team to beat in the Spanish Grand Prix? Have your say below.
And don’t forget to enter your predictions for this weekend’s race. You can edit your predictions until the start of qualifying:
2017 Spanish Grand Prix
- Second Driver of the Weekend win for Wehrlein
- Tense Spanish Grand Prix gets solid rating
- 2017 Spanish GP team radio transcript
- 2017 Spanish Grand Prix Predictions Championship results
- 2017 Spanish Grand Prix team radio highlights: Race
hahostolze (@hahostolze)
11th May 2017, 11:59
I don’t get why the 5 second thing keeps getting repeated. We went nearly six seconds faster in winter testing… Surely we can repeat 5 at a race weekend?
minnis (@minnis)
11th May 2017, 13:08
Simple. Super soft tyres.
Raikkonen’s time was set on the super soft tyres which aren’t available this week, with Pirelli bringing the soft, medium and hards.
As Raikkonen went nearly 6 seconds faster on the super softs, it follows that he should go nearly 5 seconds faster on the softs, which he will be using in Q3. Nearly, but not enough – hence the question of can they lap 5 seconds a lap faster.
Dewald Nel (@ho3n3r)
11th May 2017, 13:39
@minnis they used supersoft/ultrasoft tyres in last year’s preseason test as well, and they still went faster on yellow softs come official race qualifying.
anon
11th May 2017, 18:15
@ho3n3r, the results from the 2016 pre-season tests were a bit of a statistical anomaly though – only three teams actually improved on their times in the qualifying sessions for the Spanish GP (Mercedes, Red Bull and McLaren), with the rest of the field setting slower times in qualifying in comparison to their pre-season testing form.
For quite a few years now (and when I say that, I’m talking about going back into the early 2000’s, cutting across multiple different regulation periods), there has been a trend of teams often going faster in pre-season testing than in qualifying for the Spanish GP.
Jordi Casademunt (@casjo)
11th May 2017, 20:52
A 1:19.681 is needed.
Now, Stroll, during testing, did a 1:20.335. On Soft tyres. That’s just 7 tenths away from the goal, and Williams are surely more than 7 tenths off the pace.
If I were a betting man, I’d bet on the pole being comfortably faster than 1:19.6.
frood19 (@frood19)
12th May 2017, 10:14
the air temp will be higher which means weaker engine and aero performance. a lot of that is mitigated by the turbo (which works well in thinner air anyway) and by the higher track temps (this may or may not help). i think the ferraris are going to be awesome here.
@F1-liners (@f1-liners)
11th May 2017, 12:23
Will Red Bull’s upgrades make it a three-way contest?
It’s highly likely!
But not sure if it will be with Mercedes/Ferrari for the win or Williams/Renault for ‘best of the rest’ ;)
Sven (@crammond)
11th May 2017, 12:43
As far as I’m aware, the “off-season clarifications on the rules regarding sophisticated suspension systems” meant that Red Bull had to run with a very conventional suspension for the first races, whereas Ferrari and Merc were running systems just slightly different from what Red Bull didn’t get through with. If they managed to redesign that into a legal version, this alone could be quite a big gain. On top of that, the Renault engine should now get the 2017 kinetic part of ERS after running the 2016 KERS for the first races, and the aero department will have its usual first big update. So closing the gap is a real possibility, but so is having no update to the suspension ready (or it still being considered illegal), the aero updates being difficult on the balance and the PU having new reliability problems. Let’s see.
Fukobayashi (@)
11th May 2017, 14:06
@crammond source? I have heard nothing about a redesigned suspension system nor is the Renault PU upgrade ready yet.
Sven (@crammond)
11th May 2017, 21:31
@offdutyrockstar Source would be the ORF-pre-race coverage, and it was about “expecting”, “will probably bring”, so no, I didn’t mean it to sound like “they have it now”, but more like “they could have something like that”. It would feel quite natural, if you have a suspension system that was deemed illegal where others have very similar legal suspensions, to adapt what you have and bring it along with the first round of big updates, but of course I don’t know what Red Bull has ready.
Fukobayashi (@)
12th May 2017, 9:08
@crammond moreso that I havent heard that Mercedes were able to pass legality with a lightly modified version of the system, only that they took it off completely and that Ferrari never had it in the first place. Renault PU upgrade will come for Canada.
@F1-liners (@f1-liners)
12th May 2017, 10:09
The upgrade has been delayed indefinitely :(
@offdutyrockstar
Fukobayashi (@)
12th May 2017, 10:42
@f1-liners oh dear
montey carlo (@roundtheoutside)
11th May 2017, 13:12
I reckon rb can get ahead of either 1 Ferrari or 1 merc in qually
Just imagine Spain q3
1st lewis
2nd seb
3rd bottas
4th could be taken from the weak link (kimi)He has been the worst qualifier of Ferrari and merc. I think in Spain if rb qualify 4th that’s good considering there engine upgrade is coming in Canada. I doubt rb will fight for the top step at Spain in normal circumstances
Chinmay
11th May 2017, 13:48
Spain Q3
1st Raikkonen
2nd Vettel
3rd Hamilton
4th Bottas
5th Verstappen
Sumedh
11th May 2017, 14:28
I am not expecting a big jump from RB. They have admitted to having correlation issues which typically take quite long to fix (e.g.: Ferrari during the Alonso era). They have also expressed surprise when they suddenly find pace (Ricciardo made that comment once).
Also, I personally believe Newey’s aerodynamic genius over his peers is best demonstrated in difficult situations (difficult situation being the 2009-16 era where pursuing aerodynamic innovations was difficult due to restrictive regulations). In times of easier regulations (pre-2008 and now), his genius is difficult to see. Think about your school class: The most genius guy in math would be the one who solves the most difficult problem but almost everybody in the class can solve the easier problem.
Fireblade
11th May 2017, 18:17
Without an engine upgrade its difficult to imagine how RB can compete at the front in Spain. This is something of a “power circuit” as well.
The track layout and the tyre selection should play to Mercedes advantage so I expect a 1-2 finish for them here.
@F1-liners (@f1-liners)
12th May 2017, 10:26
Clearly somebody who skipped school the day they covered ‘selfless’ :p
@F1-liners (@f1-liners)
12th May 2017, 10:28
wrong place :”>