Spanish Grand Prix 2016, Catalunya - Race 5/21

Man of Honour
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Catalunya

The Formula One teams are no strangers to the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya (formerly known as the Circuit de Catalunya); not only have they raced there every year since 1991, they also conduct extensive testing at the venue.

Familiarity does not, however, lessen the challenge for car or driver. Barcelona's mix of high- and low-speed corners, plus its abrasive and rather bumpy track surface, makes for a physically and mechanically taxing race.

Tyre wear is particularly high and the varying winds that cut across the circuit mean an optimum set-up can be hard to find.

For spectators Elf corner is among the best places to watch, as it is one of the track's few overtaking opportunities. For the drivers it is the final two turns, known collectively as New Holland, which provide one of the biggest challenges of the season. A fast exit is essential in order to maximise speed down the start-finish straight into Elf.

2014 marked the 24th time Barcelona has hosted the Spanish Grand Prix. Michael Schumacher has been the most successful driver at the circuit, with a total of six victories. Among the current drivers, Kimi Raikkonen, Fernando Alonso, Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa have all won there.


TV Times

Sky:
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C4:
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Track Diagram & Information

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Weather Forecast

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2015 Onboard Lap

http://www.formula1.com/content/fom-website/en/video/2015/5/Onboard_pole_position_lap_-_Spain.html


2015 Race Edit

http://www.formula1.com/content/fom-website/en/video/2015/5/Race_Edit__Spain_'15.html


Tyre Set Selections Per Driver - Russia

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Spain Preview Quotes

http://www.formula1.com/content/fom-website/en/latest/headlines/2016/5/spain-preview-quotes.html


WDC Standings

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Constructors' Championship Standings

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Pole Positions & Winners Per Grand Prix
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Practice 1

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Practice 2

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Practice 3

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Qualifying

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Race

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Soldato
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Gonna be interesting to see how the RBR driver swap goes.

I agree, in terms of will the car swap completely wreck their tyre compound choices.

Kvyat chose 2/4/7 (hard/med/soft) while at RBR.

Verstappen chose 1/6/6 while at TR.

Or is someone now going to tell me the tyres are allocated to a car, rather than the specific driver?:confused:
 
Caporegime
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Pirelli have dropped the ball with tyres again it seems, with everyone skewing towards the softest available as much as possible :(.

Or is someone now going to tell me the tyres are allocated to a car, rather than the specific driver?:confused:

They have to be by car. They are chosen 8 or 14 weeks in advance, so a few teams didn't even know who would be driving for them when they chose their tyres for the first few races.

They are obviously chosen by the driver who expects to be in the car, but like Stoffle inheriting Alonso's tyres, I expect Max is going to get whatever Kvyat chose, and vice versa.
 
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Caporegime
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Not even that, they could have brought the Super Softs.

Its going to be another frustrating 1 or 2 stop race, isn't it :(.

Didn't even think about the SS
OK, that really is crazy. Ugh one weekend where I don't have much on and it's a snooze fest gp.
I don't get why they just don't open up all compounds. Why hold things back? There's no need. Surely to make the spectacle better you want ability for teams to make good/bad decisions, a perfectly fair and unbiased way way to this is let teams make inspired/disastrous tyre choices.

It back fired on red bull last race and thus caused more overtaking m
 
Soldato
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Reading a James Allen on F1 article earlier, he reckons that the tyre choices aren't necessarily going to create a dull race, as he doesn't think that the Soft is a great tyre to race on, but that the top 10 are likely to have set their Q2 laps on Softs, so we'll end up with split strategies by default. I hope he's right:

James Allen said:
For Spain, we have a return to variability; the soft, medium and hard tyres are the choices, the latter two being what Pirelli brought in previous seasons. What makes the three tyre rule particularly intriguing this weekend is that the cars will all qualify on the soft, but its not a tyre you would choose to race on. The leading ten cars will have to start on those used soft tyres and they won’t last a long time in the opening stint before they need to be changed.

So we will see many different approaches to the race from there and for the cars starting outside the top ten, this is a great chance to start on a more durable tyre than the cars ahead and pick up positions early in the race. It should really mix things up. We could see a number of cars using all three compounds, while others may opt to make three stops and run fast. The performance difference between the compounds, based on testing in March was:

Soft to Medium – 0.9/1.0 sec
Medium to Hard – 0.5 sec

So you’re looking at 1.5s per lap between the soft and the hard, but the soft degrades more quickly. A pit stop takes 22 seconds, so the soft if you can get a car out into clear air on new softs there is time to be made. Mercedes may explore the possibility of setting their Q2 qualifying lap on the medium tyres in order to be able to start on those, as Rosberg did in China.
 
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