Only tepid expectations preceded this year’s edition of the Spanish Grand Prix. Most expected the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya’s painful adherence to conventional track design to suit the Red Bulls perfectly, given the team had laboured with literal and metaphorical bumps in the road.
Although the predictions were largely right as Max Verstappen chalked up another win to add to his impressive tally, it was by no means a trademark run-and-hide victory as McLaren and Lando Norris put the Dutchman under pressure. Sure, time ran out for Norris to get onto Verstappen’s gearbox, but it was nonetheless a statement that Red Bull’s previous advantage over the rest of the field has eroded away.
But wait, there’s more. Mercedes and Ferrari battled over the remaining top five positions, Alpine expected a difficult weekend and somehow ended up being the fifth-best team, after bringing back a previously disgraced old flame to advise on its future endeavours. The driver market is also reaching a tipping point, as the dominoes prepare to fall on the remaining seats.
You know the drill by now: 10 disparate things, with explanations for each. Let’s get started.
1. The field is closing up, but Red Bull’s still ahead
Verstappen’s advantage has been eroded to give him more of a challenge, but he is proving more than a match for it
Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool
The recent tongue-wagging about Red Bull’s current disinclination for bumpy track surfaces and kerbs was always going to be quelled when it came to racing at Barcelona. Although the circuit is not usually associated with the descriptor of “billiard-table smooth”, it very much belongs to the oeuvre of ‘conventional’ circuits boasting high-speed, long-radius corners that permeated the F1 calendar in the 1980s and 1990s.
Those corners are of a brand that Red Bull happens to like. The underbody has, for the past couple of seasons, been very good at building and maintaining a consistent level of downforce throughout. But McLaren has also become pretty good at that in recent months and seems to have a bit more of an all-rounder on its hands; the Red Bull is much more tricky to handle by comparison when it comes to dumping downforce through slow, short-radius corners.
That Norris was just 2.2 seconds behind, rather than 20, indicates the progress that has been made behind Red Bull. But it’s often so much more than the car; the Red Bull-Verstappen dyad remains…
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