Spain: The Pilots’ Perspective

Featured on the calendar since 1991, the Montmelo circuit near Barcelona immediately entered the annals of Formula One thanks to the duel between Ayrton Senna and Nigel Mansell, wheel-to-wheel on the start/finish straight. Felipe Massa, who won there in 2007 with Ferrari, finds it a very nice track: It’s a demanding track where you need a good car if you want to perform well and, on top of that, if the car works well here, it usually means it will perform well almost everywhere.

Nico Hülkenberg is delighted to return to Barcelona: It’s a circuit that I enjoy and where I’ve had quite a bit of success in the past. It’s very fast, with a lot of right-hand turns, and it’s physically demanding, especially on the neck. Regarding the city of Barcelona, I love going there because it’s a nice place with always a good atmosphere. In the stands too, as they are always full on race day because Spanish fans love Formula 1. But while the German driver knows the Spanish track well, he doesn’t underestimate the challenges that must be addressed each time: The first sector with turns 1, 2, and 3 is tricky, and you have to approach them as a single turn. A mistake in turn 1 or 2 will affect 3 and cost you time. It’s really nice when you manage to take them well. The last sector is very technical: it’s slow and winding, especially the last chicane, so it’s easy to lose time at the end of a lap.

Pastor Maldonado shares the opinion of his predecessor at Williams by stating that it is a very enjoyable circuit to drive, technical yet always fast, with turns 3 and 9 being real tests, while Kamui Kobayashi believes that Montmelo has a bit of everything: fast corners, mid-speed corners, and slow-speed corners. Even though everyone knows the circuit very well, it is very difficult to find good setups. […] It will be a challenge this weekend for us drivers, as well as for the cars and engineers.

For Nico Rosberg, it’s quite unique to return to a track where we’ve covered so many laps during winter testing, but the German emphasizes that the race weekend represents a completely different challenge. Jenson Button, who won in Catalonia the year he clinched the title, shares the opinion of his Mercedes counterpart: Barcelona can be a fun circuit. We test there so often that each driver knows the track by heart, but it remains an extremely tricky place to get everything right. However, because all teams know the track so well, even having a well-prepared car isn’t necessarily enough since sometimes it’s the smallest detail that determines the finishing order. You have to be good in all sectors if you want to win in Barcelona. It’s a circuit that punishes poor balance like almost no other track: if your car understeers here, you’re really going to suffer. There isn’t a corner that particularly stands out, but the sequence of turns 7 and 8, followed by the fast turn 9, is very fluid and offers great sensations when you negotiate it correctly, especially in qualifying.

At the Red Bull camp, Sebastian Vettel emphasizes the importance of the wind that can change the game: Of all the circuits we go to for a Grand Prix, Barcelona is the one we know best because we’ve done a lot of testing there in recent years. That being said, the knowledge you gain during these tests doesn’t help you much because of the wind, which often changes here, and it can lead to nasty surprises, especially in turn 1. But generally, a car that works well from an aerodynamic perspective in Barcelona will perform well everywhere – so it will be an interesting weekend.

In Barcelona, for Heikki Kovalainen, the main challenge will be to do everything perfectly on a circuit that drivers and teams know perfectly: « If you make a mistake that costs you half a second, it can impact your starting position, and it’s a race where you must focus on the details to give yourself the best chances of success. It’s a track with many high-speed corners, some where you really need to be precise to save time, and you have to be quite committed approaching the first corner because there’s an overtaking opportunity at the braking point. »

For Kovalainen, qualifying will therefore be particularly important given the characteristics of the circuit: For the fans, it’s often a fairly quiet race because it’s a track where overtaking is difficult, but that makes qualifying even more crucial and means you have to execute your plan without hitches on Saturday.

Lewis Hamilton joins his former teammate but hopes the new technical setup will spice up the race: « It has always been a difficult place to overtake – as I learned last year – but I really hope the combination of DRS and KERS will make things a bit easier. I think it’s going to be one of the most challenging circuits for overtaking, but I hope to deliver a strong qualifying performance to make the race as easy as possible for us. »

Fernando Alonso, however, believes that the Grand Prix on Sunday could be more open than usual: “I looked at the numbers, and in recent years, on this circuit, we had 4 or 5 overtakes during the Grand Prix, but last year, there were 57. In the past, starting from pole position assured a 60% chance of victory, but that’s no longer the case.” Kimi Räikkönen also considers that with the new technical regulations, “you no longer need to be on pole to win.”

Romain Grosjean believes that the Catalan circuit should serve as a good benchmark for the entire European season: « The first sector is very fast with the first four corners, and the last one is rather slow between turns 10 and 15. At the exit of turn 15, you need a good rear end and excellent traction. It’s important not to overheat the rear tires and their wear will be key. If you degrade your tires too much, your lap times are worthless. Therefore, tire management will be the key element to a good race result. » Narain Karthikeyan also points out that, for the first time this season, Pirelli has brought separate compounds from a range: « This is the first time this season that we will have Hard and Soft tires, so the gap in lap times will be significant and strategy will play a decisive role. […] Since the tires are softer this year, the degradation, especially with the Soft tires, will be high due to lateral forces in curves like turn 3. »

But especially since the disappearance of the San Marino Grand Prix, and except for 2011, the Spanish Grand Prix marks the return to Europe, which Timo Glock enjoys: “I’m looking forward to the Spanish Grand Prix and the start of the European season. After racing internationally in the early races, it’s nice to be back in Europe. The logistics are much simpler for the team, and the travel is shorter for everyone, so it allows us to get to work right away.” This is an opportunity for the teams, as Kimi Räikkönen points out, to bring improvements, which makes the race even more interesting and tighter among the best. Furthermore, Bruno Senna shares the Finn’s opinion: “A lot of cars will come to Barcelona with new parts, so it will be interesting to see who has made progress.”

On the French side, Charles Pic is more familiar than ever with the terrain in Barcelona: The Circuit de Catalunya is a track I know well; I’ve raced there several times. All young drivers have a lot of experience there. For instance, Paul di Resta says he probably knows Barcelona better than any other circuit on the calendar, while for Sergio Pérez, the Spanish GP is one of the most special on the calendar: I obviously know the circuit very well thanks to GP2 and last year’s F1 race, as well as from testing. This is where I scored my first F1 points. Vitaly Petrov echoes this sentiment: Barcelona is a track I know well and one of those I enjoy driving on. I stood on the podium here in 2009 in GP2.

For Pedro de la Rosa, the 2012 Spanish Grand Prix will have a very special flavor: The Spanish Grand Prix is the most important race for a Spanish driver, but this time it will be even more special for me because I am racing for a Spanish team in my birthplace. […] We are looking forward to it and it is something historical that I will try to enjoy as much as possible.

Some chronological milestones:

1996: Michael Schumacher (Ferrari) scores his 20th Formula One victory in Barcelona, the first for the Scuderia, in torrential rain.

**2001:** Michael Schumacher (Ferrari) wins the race despite being about forty seconds behind Mika Hakkinen (McLaren) in the penultimate lap. The Finn, who was heading for his fourth consecutive victory in Spain, was forced to retire due to a hydraulic problem in the final lap, after having lapped Juan-Pablo Montoya, 3rd, by more than a lap.

2003: After starting the season with an evolution of the F2002, Michael Schumacher wins the Spanish Grand Prix driving the new F2003-GA, named in tribute to Gianni Agnelli.

2004: Michael Schumacher (Ferrari) claims a fourth consecutive victory in Spain, the fifth in as many races at the start of the 2004 season.

2005: Kimi Räikkönen (McLaren) wins the race after starting from pole position.

2006: Fernando Alonso (Renault) wins his home Grand Prix, which remains to this day his only victory on Spanish soil.

2007: Lewis Hamilton (McLaren) becomes, in Spain, the first driver to step onto the podium four times in his first four career Grand Prix, but the victory goes to Felipe Massa.

2008: Kimi Räikkönen (Ferrari) wins again starting from pole position.

2009: Jenson Button (Brawn GP) wins in Spain after starting from pole position, while Rubens Barrichello (Brawn GP) led a good part of the race. The Brazilian records his 17th and last fastest lap in a race on this occasion.

2010: Mark Webber (Red Bull) wins his third Grand Prix, leading from start to finish for the first time.

**2011:** While Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull) withstands the pressure from Lewis Hamilton (McLaren) up to the checkered flag, Sergio Pérez scores his first points in the discipline by finishing the race in 9th position.