Formula One field hoping for a reset at Spanish Grand Prix
It’s probably wishful thinking to expect this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix will serve as a reset of the Formula One championship, as has been suggested. Then again, if not now, when?
F1 is based in Europe, and after trekking far and wide to the first four races of the season, teams are back on familiar territory where they get to regroup, take stock and try to improve their cars for the next phase of the campaign.
Spain is the optimal place to introduce car upgrades, as the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya serves as the main testing ground during the off-season, its design a useful template for track characteristics around the world.
It’s where teams unveil their first flurry of improvements to engines, suspensions and bodywork in their elusive pursuit of shedding crucial fractions of a second from lap times that can be the difference between winning and losing.
This year is no different. Though the cars are a constant work in progress, evolving from race to race as designers and engineers fiddle and tweak, it’s here that teams hope to take a significant step forward.
For Mercedes and Ferrari,
the goal will be to try to break the deadlock at the front of the pack, each seeking to unlock a little extra performance in their heated chase for the drivers’ and constructors’ titles.
As it stands, there is little to choose between the two powerhouses. Each has a pair of wins: Sebastian Vettel accounts for both at Ferrari, and Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas split the honours at Mercedes.
Close behind them is Red Bull, the only other entry to visit the podium this season, courtesy of Max Verstappen’s third-place finish in China on April 9. The team hopes to close the gap on the front-runners in Barcelona and turn the title fight into a three-horse race.
The rest of us hope so, too. It’s probably fair to say even Mercedes fans grew tired of the lack of genuine competition during the past three years, when the only question was which of the two drivers in silver overalls would be crowned champion.
Ferrari’s strong performance so far is welcome, while Red Bull’s lack of same is puzzling. Its vaunted strength in the area of aerodynamics was expected to give the team an advantage under changes to F1’s technical specifications this year. It hasn’t.
Vettel of Ferrari is among those who expect — and hope — Red Bull finds its wings in Barcelona and injects an added dose of excitement to the on-track proceedings.
“I think it will be a very close race between Mercedes and us, I hope, and I also hope that Red Bull find some pace,” Vettel told reporters, noting that his former team has been the subject of “a lot of rumours” regarding its work behind the scenes leading up to this weekend.
“They are a strong team, they know how to build a quick car, so I expect it’s a question of when rather than if.
“But the sooner, the more exciting it will be for us.”
Individual drivers, too, will want to use Barcelona to make a statement, starting with Bottas, whose win in Russia was his first in F1 after 81 starts.
This is the Finn’s first season at Mercedes, and now that he has a competitive car, he will need more victories to shake off the long shadow of his three-time champion teammate Hamilton.
Then there’s fellow Finn Kimi Raikkonen, the lone driver among the top four who has yet to win a Grand Prix this year. With his contract expiring at the end of the season, he needs to make a strong case for why he should keep his seat at Ferrari.
And don’t forget Lance Stroll. After failing to finish the first three races, the Montreal rookie placed a respectable 11th in Sochi. Next, he must aim to do at least one better and finish in the top 10 and start contributing points to his Williams team.
For Stroll and the others, “the season will start new” in Spain, according to F1 great Niki Lauda, a non-executive chairman at Mercedes.
That might be overstating things. Then again, we’ll know soon enough.