[Official] Spanish Grand Prix 2023: Grand Prix Weekend Thread - Round 8 of 23

[bjohnsonsmith]

Perez and Russell out of Q2.

[rika]

Penalty incoming for Gasly (impeding Sainz AND Verstappen) and Russel (impeding team mate Hamilton) ??


Stupid and dangerous from Russel

[Beau2]

Another poor qualifying weekend from Perez - has the idea of being in a Championship fight got to his head?
Alonso is looking like a more credible title contender right now and he's miles off too.

[E.B]

Originally Posted by rika

Penalty incoming for Gasly (impeding Sainz AND Verstappen) and Russel (impeding team mate Hamilton) ??

3 place grid penalty for each = total 6 grid place drop. Will start 10th not 4th.

No driver demerit points for his sins... he was in risk of a race ban at season start if he gathered one more point.... he had accumulated 11 in under 12 months and 12 points accrued within 12 months = a ban for one race.
Fortunately 3 of his demerit points from last year expired at the cancelled Imola weekend so he now drops to a total 8 demerit points on his license.

[Born Racer]

Unusual qually session. Hülkenberg had pace on Friday, but I didn't necessarily see him unleashing it on Saturday. Then you have Norris and Gasly fast (the latter with a penalty, of course) and Alonso being outdone by Stroll. The Aston Martin surprise means that Albon is now the only driver to have outqualified his teammate for every Grand Prix this year.

[S griffin]

Very topsy turvey session. Max on pole, no surprise there, but good to see Sainz and Norris up there. Stroll finally manages to outqualify Alonso. Close call between the Mercs. Hulk finally getting it together to make Q3. Both Checo and Russell out in Q2, but even bigger shock, Leclerc out in Q1!

[peebee2]

Originally Posted by Born Racer

Alonso being outdone by Stroll.

Fred did have significant floor damage though.

[Born Racer]

Yes, you're right, peebee2. I guess I simply meant that he was beaten by him, along the lines of Alonso made the mistake in Q1, Stroll didn't. But you're right - it wasn't a simple case of outperforming him.

[peebee2]

Originally Posted by Born Racer

Yes, you're right, peebee2. I guess I simply meant that he was beaten by him, along the lines of Alonso made the mistake in Q1, Stroll didn't. But you're right - it wasn't a simple case of outperforming him.

Sure, the floor damage was down to himself, and Stroll did well. Will be interesting to see if they stay in that order for long in the race.

[TrapezeArtist]

That was a much better qually than I was expecting. I didn't have any high hopes for the weekend, perhaps because I was still thinking back to the days when the teams did a huge amount of winter testing there and it was all very predictable.

The deletion of the chicane is brilliant. Something I have been wishing for for years but never thought it would happen.

The generally topsy-turvy grid shows a lot of teams getting totally different results from their two drivers:
Ferrari upgrades seem to be working but there was clearly something wrong on Leclerc's car.
One Red Bull was overwhelmingly dominant, leaving Perez looking very lacklustre.
Stroll in front of Alonso was a surprise to me, so thanks to Peebee for pointing out that Alonso damaged his floor when he went for a wander in Q1.
I'm not sure why Russell fell so short of Hamilton. Did he just get caught out by the rapidly improving track? Perhaps he missed out on the big lap when he collided with his teammate, but that affected Hamilton too.
The circuit seemed to play to the McLaren strengths. I was delighted to see Lando right up there and it was disappointing that Piastri wasn't there too after his good showing earlier.
Alpine showed their Monaco result wasn't just a flash in the pan. Did they take the mirrors off Gasly's car to make it go faster?

With Carlos on the front row and Fred a little way back, the Spanish fans will have to redirect their allegiance for the race.

[v8supes]

Lets hope this rain comes. Looks to be raining in the distance.

[bjohnsonsmith]

A cleanish start as Hamilton and Norris coming together, with Norris needing a new front wing.

[Greem]

Coming up to half distance; Ferrari having a nightmare with Leclerc's car and Sainz is the meat in a Mercedes sandwich in 3rd.

Verstappen is on another planet. Driver and car in perfect harmony.

But... Rain at T5 according to Russell!

[Greem]

Correction: sweat in Russell's helmet at T5

[Richard C]

George having challenges..



Richard

[Richard C]

Wonder what happened to Lando. He had the early contact and they changed his wing, but the contact seemed light and I wouldn't think it caused other damage. He has languished at rear all race.

Richard

[bjohnsonsmith]

Super Max gets the Black and White flag for exceeding track limits.

[BTCC frog]

It wasn't the best of races, and wasn't as good as qualifying, but somehow I enjoyed it more than any of the first five this season. It was good that Mercedes were a bit more competitive, hopefully they can take the fight to Red Bull a bit more in the future, even if that just means Perez. It was interesting that George Russell was able to beat Sergio Perez despite starting behind him, and that is arguably the first genuine defeat dealt to either Red Bull all season. Predictably, overtaking was far too easy as it has been all the time for the past two years, and it makes a jumbled grid far less interesting than if there was no DRS.

It was certainly Mercedes making a step up rather than Red Bull a step down, because Ferrari and Aston Martin were nowhere this weekend, particularly Leclerc who had a shocker although I did check the gap between him and Sainz at their final stop and it was pretty much constant throughout the final stint. I don't know what is going on with Alonso at the moment, he has been making a big deal out of being a good teammate to Stroll which is good, but not passing him when he was clearly faster was strange and frustrating. If we can't have a championship battle, the next best thing is a good battle for second, and that is two points needlessly dropped by Alonso. It is far more likely that he could lose third place to Hamilton, and if that is by just two points then it is here that he lost it. Perhaps part of his contract is to try and make Stroll look good?

[v8supes]

Another race without a single retirement or misplaced wheel. I feel as if F1 is too easy? Even in Monaco without the rain we were heading towards a very clean race.

[BTCC frog]

A thought I had during this weekend is that, during the 2018-2020 seasons when Lewis Hamilton was at his absolute peak, I never remember feeling that it was a foregone conclusion that he would beat Bottas in any race, or particularly any qualifying session. He was always expected to beat Bottas, but I don't remember feeling totally shocked if it was the other way around. And there were plenty of races when Bottas simply outdrove him. On the other hand, going into every qualifying session and race for the last three years, I have felt totally sure that Verstappen would beat Perez (apart from when he was well down the grid like Jeddah this year), and it has very rarely ended up the other way around. I would be interested to know if I am misremembering or if others also feel more confident of Verstappen beating Perez than they were of Hamilton beating Bottas.

You could argue that this is just because Bottas is better than Perez and that might be true, although their respective performances outside of the top teams don't necessarily support that. You could also argue that Mercedes were more likely to give their drivers equal treatment at the start of the season, whereas Verstappen is more obviously the number one at Red Bull, which there is more of a case for. But I am wondering if Verstappen is now operating at a higher level than Hamilton ever has, even at his best? However, there are far more examples of Hamilton doing something that really made you think, 'that was special,' than there are with Verstappen. I'm not sure Verstappen has ever driven a more impressive race than Hamilton's Brazil 2021, Turkey 2020, Mexico 2019, Singapore 2018, Monza 2018. However, maybe he just hasn't had an opportunity to over the last two years because he has the best car. Spa 2022 was certainly very impressive, as was Suzuka 2022 and Monaco 2023, while his qualifying lap in Jeddah 2021 was something special until the crash. We have also seen a season, 2021, in which both drivers were close to their peak, and driving in practically equal machinery, and as much as the Abu Dhabi race that year was a total farce, over the whole season you would have to say that Verstappen looked the slightly better driver.

In an all-time ranking, I would still rank Hamilton higher than Verstappen because he has been a top driver for longer, and Verstappen is still early in his career and could be being flattered by his car and team, as Vettel was in the early 2010s. But I do wonder if Verstappen could end up being the stronger driver overall.

[GT6]

Well not a bad race after the dull racing last time.

[Lancsbreaker]

Odd - it wasn't a bad race, and there was lots of overtaking, some of it well crafted......but I still didn't feel particularly excited by it. Pleased to see the Mercedes upgrades seem to have worked.


Felt Tsunoda was hard done by.....

[Sodemo]

It makes you wonder the thought process behind these track changes. So they seemingly changed the layout to the chicane in 2007 for safety reasons as the run off wasn’t large enough, so what has changed to allow this layout to now be viable?

[steve_r]

Originally Posted by Sodemo

It makes you wonder the thought process behind these track changes. So they seemingly changed the layout to the chicane in 2007 for safety reasons as the run off wasn’t large enough, so what has changed to allow this layout to now be viable?

I don't know. But the old chicane was an abomination and I am glad to see the back of it.

Large run offs seem to have fallen out of fashion, hence Singapore, Baku and all the other new street circuits with very fast corners and absolutely no run off. Compared to those newish tracks the Barcelona track looks very safe to my untrained eyes, last corner included.

[peebee2]

Originally Posted by steve_r

I don't know. But the old chicane was an abomination and I am glad to see the back of it.

Large run offs seem to have fallen out of fashion, hence Singapore, Baku and all the other new street circuits with very fast corners and absolutely no run off. Compared to those newish tracks the Barcelona track looks very safe to my untrained eyes, last corner included.

The problem with the last corner is the angle you'll hit the barrier if you go off at speed through the corner.

As happened to Mario Haberfeld etc.