The Official 2016 Spanish Grand Prix Thread **Spoilers**
Discussion
Date(s): Friday 13 May - Sunday 15 May 2016
UK Broadcast Timings (and local time)
All sessions are live on Sky F1 and Channel 4.
Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Montmeló
More detail from the FIA website:
2015 Grand Prix Results
Pole time: 1:24.681 (N. Rosberg, Mercedes; Avg Speed: 197.896 km/h)
Fastest Race Lap: 1:28.270 (L54; L. Hamilton, Mercedes; Avg Speed: 189.849 km/h)
Live timing for all sessions available here:
http://www.formula1.com/content/fom-website/en/f1-...
Weather forecast:
https://weather.com/en-GB/weather/10day/l/Circuit+...
The tyre choices requested by the teams:
Note: Kvyat and Verstappen swapped their teams, but will not swap their tyre selections.
The Spanish GP inaugurates the European season this year, with most teams choosing to bring a lot of updates to their car. This is partly due to a good baseline they’ve established at this circuit during the pre-season test. This race also marks the first time the teams will have chosen the tyres ‘unblinded’ i.e. after they’ve had a chance to test them as the deadline for the four flyaway races was in December ‘15 whereas the next few races were in March ‘16.
Pirelli had always brought their hardest compounds for this race, but for the first time are bringing the yellow banded Softs which holds a lot of strategic interest. Straight away, you can see Ferrari favouring the Softs in terms of number of sets for their drivers.
I would say this is one of the strongest tracks for Rosberg. He was in a class of one last year at this race and had always gone well here. I have also enjoyed the boxing match between Hamilton and Rosberg at this circuit where one sets up the car to destroy the other on Sector 2 or 3 and how it plays out in qualifying vs race. Looking back at ‘14 and ‘15, Rosberg has always been strong in Sector 3 while Hamilton delivers his punch in Sector 2. Both approaches are great if you’re playing to your strengths and only fighting your team mate, but Rosberg’s approach makes more sense vs Ferrari as they are weaker in the low speed Sector 3.
It will be interesting to see how close Ferrari are to Mercedes as last year, Vettel was nipping at the heels of Hamilton during the early part of the race on the medium tyres. It was the Mercedes pace on the Hard tyre that Ferrari couldn’t handle. It would be good to see a straight fight this time.
Lots of talking points about what aero updates worked and what didn’t for this race for the smaller and larger teams...and the my chassis is better than yours debates.
Race Classification:
UK Broadcast Timings (and local time)
All sessions are live on Sky F1 and Channel 4.
| Session | Day | Sky F1 | Channel 4 | Session Start | Local Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Practice 1 | Fri | 0845 | 0855 | 0900 | 1000 |
| Practice 2 | Fri | 1245 | 1255 | 1300 | 1400 |
| Practice 3 | Sat | 0945 | 0955 | 1000 | 1100 |
| Qualifying | Sat | 1200 | 1200 | 1300 | 1400 |
| Race | Sun | 1130 | 1200 | 1300 | 1400 |
Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Montmeló
More detail from the FIA website:
2015 Grand Prix Results
| P1 | N. Rosberg | Mercedes | 1:41:12.555 |
| P2 | L. Hamilton | Mercedes | +17.551 |
| P3 | S. Vettel | Ferrari | +45.342 |
| P4 | V. Bottas | Williams-Mercedes | +59.217 |
| P5 | K. Räikkönen | Ferrari | +1:00.002 |
| P6 | F. Massa | Williams-Mercedes | +1 lap |
| P7 | D. Ricciardo | Red Bull-Renault | +1 lap |
| P8 | R. Grosjean | Lotus-Mercedes | +1 lap |
| P9 | C. Sainz | Torro Rosso-Renault | +1 lap |
| P10 | D. Kvyat | Red Bull-Renault | +1 lap |
Pole time: 1:24.681 (N. Rosberg, Mercedes; Avg Speed: 197.896 km/h)
Fastest Race Lap: 1:28.270 (L54; L. Hamilton, Mercedes; Avg Speed: 189.849 km/h)
Live timing for all sessions available here:
http://www.formula1.com/content/fom-website/en/f1-...
Weather forecast:
https://weather.com/en-GB/weather/10day/l/Circuit+...
| Day | Comment | High/Low (C) | Rain | Wind (direction/speed) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fri | PM Showers | 18/12 | 40% | SSE/15mph |
| Sat | Partly Cloudy | 21/13 | 20% | SSW/15mph |
| Sun | Mostly Sunny | 20/13 | 20% | SW/23mph |
The tyre choices requested by the teams:
Note: Kvyat and Verstappen swapped their teams, but will not swap their tyre selections.
The Spanish GP inaugurates the European season this year, with most teams choosing to bring a lot of updates to their car. This is partly due to a good baseline they’ve established at this circuit during the pre-season test. This race also marks the first time the teams will have chosen the tyres ‘unblinded’ i.e. after they’ve had a chance to test them as the deadline for the four flyaway races was in December ‘15 whereas the next few races were in March ‘16.
Pirelli had always brought their hardest compounds for this race, but for the first time are bringing the yellow banded Softs which holds a lot of strategic interest. Straight away, you can see Ferrari favouring the Softs in terms of number of sets for their drivers.
I would say this is one of the strongest tracks for Rosberg. He was in a class of one last year at this race and had always gone well here. I have also enjoyed the boxing match between Hamilton and Rosberg at this circuit where one sets up the car to destroy the other on Sector 2 or 3 and how it plays out in qualifying vs race. Looking back at ‘14 and ‘15, Rosberg has always been strong in Sector 3 while Hamilton delivers his punch in Sector 2. Both approaches are great if you’re playing to your strengths and only fighting your team mate, but Rosberg’s approach makes more sense vs Ferrari as they are weaker in the low speed Sector 3.
It will be interesting to see how close Ferrari are to Mercedes as last year, Vettel was nipping at the heels of Hamilton during the early part of the race on the medium tyres. It was the Mercedes pace on the Hard tyre that Ferrari couldn’t handle. It would be good to see a straight fight this time.
Lots of talking points about what aero updates worked and what didn’t for this race for the smaller and larger teams...and the my chassis is better than yours debates.
Race Classification:
Edited by Dr Z on Monday 16th May 14:49
rdjohn said:
In order to put a stop to the conspiracy theories, this has to happen in Barcelona. Ferrari seem to be nowhere, in reality, and so Mercedes are, once more, the only game in town.
I don't particularly like to hype Ferrari up, but I don't believe that Ferrari are nowhere. I fully expect them to be much more of a challenge in this race. It's interesting that SF16-H is Allison's first proper car for Ferrari, with major changes to the PU layout, suspension and aero as well. Yet, the fundamental characteristic of the car, the DNA remains the same. The tracks that didn't suit the F14-T or the SF15-T like Sochi, still don't suit the SF16-H. It is fair to expect the Scuderia to be competitive in tracks that they had gone well in previous years.
Let's not get carried away with the hyperbole there. How come if Ferrari don't have the slightest chance of splitting the Mercedes cars, that they win 3 or 4 races? Ferrari are having a worser reliability than even Mercedes. You think they'll fluke 3 or 4 races? I don't think so.
In fact, I think there's a very real chance of Vettel splitting the Mercedes guys this very race, as long as he doesn't suffer mechanical problems or someone doesn't punt him off.
In fact, I think there's a very real chance of Vettel splitting the Mercedes guys this very race, as long as he doesn't suffer mechanical problems or someone doesn't punt him off.
EnglishTony said:
Does Max V. now have to use Kyvat's tyre choices?
Good question. AFAIK the PU allocations and everything is tied to the car and not the driver. Red Bull have not split tyre strategies so far in the GPs this year, so I'm assuming he'll have to work with what he's got for a few races before the next allocations can be chosen.How Mercedes let their drivers “race”
TL;DR: The 2014 and 2015 Spanish GPs are good case studies of how different situations can conspire to put one driver at a disadvantage. The start is critical. Anything but a 1-2 at the end of the first lap and the driver behind is fighting a losing cause. However, last year’s race here serves to illustrate how you can put yourself back into a fighting position by forcing Mercedes pit wall to deviate from their normal protocol.
I plotted the lap times of the main players in the 2015 Spanish GP below with important events marked with arrows:
At the start, Vettel gets ahead of Hamilton with Rosberg leading. Vettel clearly has an inferior car, to the tune of about 0.8s/lap compared to Rosberg or 1.4s/lap if you use Raikkonen as a reference! This is a large disadvantage even for the first stint as that’s when the Ferrari were often the closest in the races last year. Hamilton can’t find a way past Vettel despite being within DRS range for the majority of the laps.
Rosberg goes back to tracking the slower Vettel’s pace (1) as he now has enough of a buffer between him and Hamilton to conserve his tyres--this circuit has a reputation for being hard on the tyres, particularly the front left. Mercedes pit wall attention is fully on Hamilton as they try to see if Hamilton can jump Vettel somehow. He gets pitted before Rosberg.
After the first pit stops, Hamilton is still stuck behind Vettel but now he really needs to get past the Ferrari to have any chance of taking the fight to Rosberg. But he can’t. Vettel is pushing very hard on his tyres, doing everything to absorb the pressure from Hamilton (the degradation rate suggests this). And, what is Rosberg doing? Simply tracking P2 as he did in Russia ‘16.
Halfway through the stint, Mercedes pit wall have had enough as Hamilton can’t get the overtake done on track. They convert him to a 3-stop strategy and are confident that he can make up the lost time in clear air. The arrow marked (2) suggests that Rosberg is notified of this plan (after all he’s the lead driver), so he unleashes the pace he had in hand immediately to make his 2-stop strategy work vs Hamilton. 5 laps later, Hamilton pits (3).
Hamilton now has the licence to make up the lost time, so unleashing all of his car’s pace he makes up enough time to overtake Bottas and Raikkonen--both running on very old tyres. Ferrari never covered Hamilton, electing to run their own race, but if they had with Vettel, we might have continued to see a great battle between the two WDCs for P2. Ferrari clearly felt that Mercedes pace will be too hot to handle on the 3rd stint (and it probably was).
Hamilton is ahead of Vettel by the time Ferrari pit him, and Rosberg comes out a few seconds behind Hamilton having made his final stop (4). He has basically won the race now, according to the Mercedes pit wall. Rosberg chooses to keep Hamilton at arms length until he’s pitted, when he puts the hammer down (5) to have enough of a gap to Hamilton to manage till the end and also to encourage the Mercedes pit wall to call off the battle sooner. Hamilton tries to put some fast laps in for 7-8 laps with fresh medium tyres in his final stint, but Mercedes deem the gap to Rosberg too far, and Rosberg showing strong pace on the hard tyre to not be overhauled in the remaining laps. Mercedes shut down the race between #6 and #44 (6).
Much further back, Vettel starts pushing on the Hard tyre to keep the squabbling Finns at bay (7). The pace difference to Rosberg is around 0.9s/lap...so about the same as the start of the race. It will be interesting to see how much closer Ferrari are to Mercedes in this year’s race as Mercedes advantage was on the higher end here compared to other tracks.
Compare the 2015 race between team mates to that of the 2014 race when both these drivers were separated by a maximum of 4.5s throughout the whole race, trading fast laps between them (driver pitting is indicated by arrows):
It was allowed because Rosberg kept the gap small (i.e. <10s), but most importantly both cars were running 1-2 with no outside threat (Ricciardo who finished P3 was more than 16s down the road from both Mercedes cars after only 10 laps). Rosberg was the faster man that race, but Hamilton just got ahead at the start and absorbed all the pressure from Rosberg to win with just 0.7s in front.
According to Mercedes racing rules, the team mate behind is not allowed to try the undercut. Therefore, the worst outcome is when you’re behind and running 1-2; the guy at the front can basically determine your strategy and race. It’s not racing, and it heavily favours the driver who gets a better start from a front row position. There is freedom to race at the start which is why, we saw a lot of robust defensive manoeuvres being made on each other at the 1st corner of races last year. If you can come out on top of that running 1-2, you can then control the race from the front by dictating the pit stop timing to suit.
If Ferrari are a genuine threat, the team mate battle will get put on the back burner, while Mercedes concentrate on a 1-2 with some creative strategy. This is why I liked the races where Ferrari were competitive last year. It’s very boring and too managed otherwise.
TL;DR: The 2014 and 2015 Spanish GPs are good case studies of how different situations can conspire to put one driver at a disadvantage. The start is critical. Anything but a 1-2 at the end of the first lap and the driver behind is fighting a losing cause. However, last year’s race here serves to illustrate how you can put yourself back into a fighting position by forcing Mercedes pit wall to deviate from their normal protocol.
I plotted the lap times of the main players in the 2015 Spanish GP below with important events marked with arrows:
At the start, Vettel gets ahead of Hamilton with Rosberg leading. Vettel clearly has an inferior car, to the tune of about 0.8s/lap compared to Rosberg or 1.4s/lap if you use Raikkonen as a reference! This is a large disadvantage even for the first stint as that’s when the Ferrari were often the closest in the races last year. Hamilton can’t find a way past Vettel despite being within DRS range for the majority of the laps.
Rosberg goes back to tracking the slower Vettel’s pace (1) as he now has enough of a buffer between him and Hamilton to conserve his tyres--this circuit has a reputation for being hard on the tyres, particularly the front left. Mercedes pit wall attention is fully on Hamilton as they try to see if Hamilton can jump Vettel somehow. He gets pitted before Rosberg.
After the first pit stops, Hamilton is still stuck behind Vettel but now he really needs to get past the Ferrari to have any chance of taking the fight to Rosberg. But he can’t. Vettel is pushing very hard on his tyres, doing everything to absorb the pressure from Hamilton (the degradation rate suggests this). And, what is Rosberg doing? Simply tracking P2 as he did in Russia ‘16.
Halfway through the stint, Mercedes pit wall have had enough as Hamilton can’t get the overtake done on track. They convert him to a 3-stop strategy and are confident that he can make up the lost time in clear air. The arrow marked (2) suggests that Rosberg is notified of this plan (after all he’s the lead driver), so he unleashes the pace he had in hand immediately to make his 2-stop strategy work vs Hamilton. 5 laps later, Hamilton pits (3).
Hamilton now has the licence to make up the lost time, so unleashing all of his car’s pace he makes up enough time to overtake Bottas and Raikkonen--both running on very old tyres. Ferrari never covered Hamilton, electing to run their own race, but if they had with Vettel, we might have continued to see a great battle between the two WDCs for P2. Ferrari clearly felt that Mercedes pace will be too hot to handle on the 3rd stint (and it probably was).
Hamilton is ahead of Vettel by the time Ferrari pit him, and Rosberg comes out a few seconds behind Hamilton having made his final stop (4). He has basically won the race now, according to the Mercedes pit wall. Rosberg chooses to keep Hamilton at arms length until he’s pitted, when he puts the hammer down (5) to have enough of a gap to Hamilton to manage till the end and also to encourage the Mercedes pit wall to call off the battle sooner. Hamilton tries to put some fast laps in for 7-8 laps with fresh medium tyres in his final stint, but Mercedes deem the gap to Rosberg too far, and Rosberg showing strong pace on the hard tyre to not be overhauled in the remaining laps. Mercedes shut down the race between #6 and #44 (6).
Much further back, Vettel starts pushing on the Hard tyre to keep the squabbling Finns at bay (7). The pace difference to Rosberg is around 0.9s/lap...so about the same as the start of the race. It will be interesting to see how much closer Ferrari are to Mercedes in this year’s race as Mercedes advantage was on the higher end here compared to other tracks.
Compare the 2015 race between team mates to that of the 2014 race when both these drivers were separated by a maximum of 4.5s throughout the whole race, trading fast laps between them (driver pitting is indicated by arrows):
It was allowed because Rosberg kept the gap small (i.e. <10s), but most importantly both cars were running 1-2 with no outside threat (Ricciardo who finished P3 was more than 16s down the road from both Mercedes cars after only 10 laps). Rosberg was the faster man that race, but Hamilton just got ahead at the start and absorbed all the pressure from Rosberg to win with just 0.7s in front.
According to Mercedes racing rules, the team mate behind is not allowed to try the undercut. Therefore, the worst outcome is when you’re behind and running 1-2; the guy at the front can basically determine your strategy and race. It’s not racing, and it heavily favours the driver who gets a better start from a front row position. There is freedom to race at the start which is why, we saw a lot of robust defensive manoeuvres being made on each other at the 1st corner of races last year. If you can come out on top of that running 1-2, you can then control the race from the front by dictating the pit stop timing to suit.
If Ferrari are a genuine threat, the team mate battle will get put on the back burner, while Mercedes concentrate on a 1-2 with some creative strategy. This is why I liked the races where Ferrari were competitive last year. It’s very boring and too managed otherwise.
Edited by Dr Z on Saturday 7th May 15:46
rdjohn said:
How do you think Toto's assurance now fits with your analysis?
"So we owe it to them and we owe it to F1 to just let them race. The ride is going to be a bit more difficult for the team sometimes, but that is absolutely necessary."
On the two occasions where Mercedes have finished 1-2 this year it was a very messy race for the car behind, not unlike the 2015 Spanish GP for the pit wall so we don't know yet if Toto has been true to his promise. Let me just say that Toto's definition of racing is a bit too restrictive, but I guess the team's interests come first with regards to getting the WCC, so I can't object the team for not allowing Hamilton and Rosberg to race freely in the same way teams race against each other. "So we owe it to them and we owe it to F1 to just let them race. The ride is going to be a bit more difficult for the team sometimes, but that is absolutely necessary."
Marchionne expects Ferrari to start winning in Spain
This man is again trying to jinx it! Race simulations by Ferrari in the pre-season test showed them to be very close to Mercedes, but not faster than them over a race distance. Marchionne is putting more pressure on the team to perform with these comments...not sure they help in any way.
This man is again trying to jinx it! Race simulations by Ferrari in the pre-season test showed them to be very close to Mercedes, but not faster than them over a race distance. Marchionne is putting more pressure on the team to perform with these comments...not sure they help in any way.
noell35 said:
It's a bit awkward. Alonso was on form, very funny 'they swapped cars?'.
Yes it was, good job Alonso was there to lighten up the mood. Kvyat looked like he'd burst in to tears any moment...felt sorry for the guy to be honest. But, unlike other RB drivers he has a chance to redeem himself. Hopefully he flourishes in Torro Rosso during the rest of the year and ends up finding a seat elsewhere. eps said:
What's the delta between the harder and softer tyre around Barcelona? Mercs .5 second adrift at the moment, but guess they are biding their time and the track is still quite green at the moment.
Pirelli reckon it's >1s. It will be good to look at more long runs in FP2. Mercedes look very fast on the Medium tyre (low 29s to high 28s). But we knew that. FIA Technical Report says new ICE and MGU-K for Rosberg. Hamilton has new MGU-H and Turbo. Sauber and Haas are running whole new Ferrari PUs. 
Found these tweets showing split times interesting:
FP1; Vettel on the Softs and Mercs on the Medium:
They also posted the split times from Kimi's first run on the Softs in FP2...which has now mysteriously disappeared. The Mercedes was mega in Sector 3. Hamilton lost more than 4 tenths to Rosberg on the Soft tyre run, but was only losing 3 tenths on the Medium tyre to Kimi's Soft tyre run.
Not sure that Hamilton has that Sector 3 dialled in, the Ferraris can hang with the Mercs in Sector 1 and 2. If he gets stuck behind one of them again in the races, this can potentially ruin his race.
FP1; Vettel on the Softs and Mercs on the Medium:
They also posted the split times from Kimi's first run on the Softs in FP2...which has now mysteriously disappeared. The Mercedes was mega in Sector 3. Hamilton lost more than 4 tenths to Rosberg on the Soft tyre run, but was only losing 3 tenths on the Medium tyre to Kimi's Soft tyre run.
Not sure that Hamilton has that Sector 3 dialled in, the Ferraris can hang with the Mercs in Sector 1 and 2. If he gets stuck behind one of them again in the races, this can potentially ruin his race.
Having briefly looked at some long runs, I'm not sure I could form a clear picture...it's too close to call between Mercedes/Ferrari. I'm going to have to wait till qualifying to come to a conclusion.
One thing I could say though, McLaren will be around 1.5 seconds per lap slower in the race to the front runners.
To be fair to Kvyat, his long runs looked much closer to Sainz than his single lap run which can often not turn out to be the 'perfect' lap due to traffic etc in the FP sessions. Dig a bit deeper in to the long runs and you would see Verstappen is consistently more than half a second off Ricciardo on the Softs. I'd say Kvyat is doing alright, given Sainz is known for his single lap pace and he's pumped--this being his home GP. Actually Sainz's stint on the Soft tyre was the fastest of all between the four drivers. Let's see who can put in a better performance in the race and qualifying.
at him thinking a medical check and car repair would get him back out after the Australia crash!
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