"Cato Batista" 13/05/2016 18:55:39 ID #921

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The Spanish GP is always the showcase on how the rest of the season will be like, as this is the race where the teams introduce their definitive season updates. After all the winter testing at this place they have a solid bank of data to compare all the new parts and engine improvements. McLaren is presenting a new package that is “almost a complete new car” (even flying parts overnight from their factory to try this morning), and so are the new spec Force India and Haas. For what we’ve seen today Ferrari, Red Bull and Force India had made a step forward, Haas has gone the other way (“The car is very very difficult to drive” says GRO) but McLaren remains not much faster relative to the mid field, although ALO was top 10 in both sessions.

Ferrari was fastest in the opening session but Mercedes in 3rd & 4th places made clear they are still the one to beat as their times were set solely using the Pirelli’s medium compound compared to Ferrari in soft tyres. About half through FP2 (before light rain came down) when the teams switched to the soft rubber to simulate QF conditions ROS did the fastest lap of the day just ahead of RAI who’s been the fastest of the Ferrari drivers today. The Red Bull senior/junior teams were next with VER surprising everyone lapping very close to RIC the first time he sits in the RB12. It’s a very different car -engine, downforce and particularly the steering wheel with 25 separate buttons and levers- On the other side of the story, KVY was 1+ second slower that SAI in FP2.

FP1- VET (1.23.951) RAI ROS HAM RIC VER BOT SAI MAS ALO

FP2- ROS (1.23.992) RAI HAM VET SAI RIC ALO VER PER HUL

Pirelli brought a new selection to this GP: hard/orange, medium/white, soft/yellow. You can check the driver’s choices for Barcelona here: (thanks Santi) http://f1.manbos.com/post.asp?topiccode=quv2zov2p2v2d5l5g6h8r3nnig26ll&lg=es

Force India and both Red Bull teams opted for 2 sets of hard, the rest of the front runners took only one (the minimum by regulation) pointing to a race to be decided on the medium/soft choices. The yellow-walled rubber is so far 1 second faster than the white. Mercedes has 7 sets of softs for both drivers vs Ferrari 8 sets for theirs. As we know Mercedes spent 3 days of winter testing focusing entirely in the mediums (they used 60 sets!), but Ferrari is looking pretty strong on the simulation long-runs shod with the softs, so race this could be the closest the italians had been to the germans so far in 2016.

Two things to keep a close eye on: HAM is experiencing mechanical problems again, something the team is trying to keep as quiet as possible. And weather: normally a dry race in Catalunyia this time of the year, the forecast calls for rain on race day.  

Let’s get proactive now. What silver-red combination will yield the points tomorrow?

Cato - HAM  ROS  VET (so far this combo has 5 points in 4 races. Compare that to Hector’s record setting 10 points in QF this season)

Good luck

Tomorrow