.:: 2013 Spanish Grand Prix - 10/11/12 May ::.

DID YOU KNOW?: Maldonado's win here last year was the first in 132 races for Williams, and is only one of six the team has had in the past ten seasons (4 of those in 2003).

POINTS OF DISCUSSION

1. Is this Alonso's best chance of victory at Catalunya since his only win in 2006?
2. The discussion has been raised again about penalty points, and whether it can damage a championship battle (I.E. a driver racking up small infringements like driving too fast in the pitlane a couple of time could get a race ban, when the idea is to stop incidents like Belgium last year) - how could this be policed effectively?
3. Pirelli have made a change to the hard compound, making it more to the style of 2012 tyres - but there are no changes to any of the other compounds. Is this the right move, especially when the complaints from a small number of teams/fans aren't going away?
4. Reflecting one year on since Williams scored that win that had eluded them for so long, what is the key factor holding them back from being as competitive as they once were, and how can they get themselves back to the front?
5. With teams bringing huge upgrades to their cars at the start of the European season, who do you believe will be the big winners and losers in comparison to the first four races?

1. Certainly the Ferrari is a very competitive car - possibly the best it's been relative to the competition since Alsonso went there so on that basis I'd have to say yes
2. No different to x yellow cards = 3 match ban in football or whatever. As long as the penalty points were only awarded for "driver error" offences and not things like needing to change a gear box I can see it would add an interesting dynamic to it all. Not sure it is something the sport needs though!
3. Key being it's only one team so Pirelli are right to stand their ground!
4. Lack of decent driver to develop the car. Ruebens was doing a good job developing the car and I don't think it's any accident that the win came not long after he left ( if I've got my years right )
5. I don't think we will see much change in the pegging order this time around!  

1. Ask Alonso's DRS.

3. Well, they make the tires, it's the teams' job to adjust.

4. Like Addict said, car development. Also, Maldonado's inconsistency isn't helping, and Bottas is a rookie.

5. I don't see much changes in the order, but for some reason I think Ferrari may improve. 

1. Yes, but needs a good qualifying to be able to chase Vettel who will no doubtbly on pole.

2. If it was policied on a incident by incident basis, then it could work.

3. The teams need to learn how to adjust to the problems, it's a little bit cowardly to go crying to Pirelli to change it so Red Bull can stay in thr lead.

4. Lack of proper money, lack of high profile staff and no REAL talented drivers.

5. McLaren and Mercedes to improve with Lotus and Ferrari hounding Red Bull  

1). Probably, he will be up for it and after the mistakes in recent races (front wing, then DRS), Ferrari will be up for it as well, to set a marker on being top for Europe.

2). I guess it could work, but I would want to know what the stats are and how they would approach it (i.e. three strikes and your out for one race, then how many drivers actually have made three errors of this sort to require a race ban last season). It would suck if it stopped a championship race, but then again, don't do the crime if you cant do the time.

3). Teams will try and use any force they can to help them (well by force, I mean trying to get the odds in their favour, not by cheating of course, but legitimate means of trying to aid themselves as Ferrari, McLaren, Renault and many others have done before and will continue to do so). However, I want the tyres to make the races interesting, none of this early 2000 stuff where races were boring because nothing happened.

4). As Kipi says, lack of money has caused them big problems. They lack the talent in their car development on a staff side as well it seems, they lost Patrick Head and got that fool Sam Micheal in (no coincidence that McLaren have issues when he joins, same feelings with Nick Fry who ruined Super Aguri as far as I am concerned). However that aside, they just have not developed a good car in a long time, even with Rubbens at the team (remember when they were low scoring with him at the team still, I feel this is harsh to blame Pastor when he has proven he can win races). The team is in a odd position, they used to be similar to McLaren in winning championships but have not had private investment or huge sponsorship and thus from that they dropped backwards (1999 perhaps started this with the whole switch from Renault to some unknown branded engine which was poor reliability and slow, then moving to BMW, arguing with them and then loosing them to Sauber). I feel things could have been different if they had an engine manufacturer behind them, but Renault are less likely to support them as much as Red Bull and Lotus given they win races and/or were the manufacturers team not long ago. The only real way forward for them is to get some consistency and hope they can win races again, but that seems unlikely so sadly it seems unlikely they will get to the top again (bar freak races like Europe 1999) unless they can get some serious investment which can aid them get the technical staff and development tools for that car.

Again, it is too soon to blame Pastor and Botas given how Botas was allegedly going to blow Pastor away which has not really come to be the case.

5). As SadPSPAddict says, no real change, everybody will progress. I could see Ferrari perhaps making a step up to try and not blow their chance of actually winning a drivers and constructors title now they have a solid driver line up working. Lotus need improvements if they are to win the drivers title and Mercedes needs huge work if they are to win races consistently and not look slow during races. I would like to see Sauber get a good upgrade to get back to scoring good points again as I like their driver line up. Also Force Inida it would be cool to see make a step up and get a podium or two.

1. If it wasn't for silly mistakes/bad luck I think Alonso would be in Vettel's position right now, so barring any incident it may be.

2. I think the current system works fine, there aren't any 'hooligans' this season by the looks of things, Grosjean has really calmed down.

3. Again, I think it's fine as it is, any more overtaking might be going a bit far but like Garfield said I don't want something like 2002/2004 were nothing happened (a couple of GPs then didn't have any overtaking at all...). I think were on the threshold of what's acceptable with the tyres, when it gets to a 4 stop being the best strategy I'd say that's too much.

4. Bottas is an unknown quantity, and Maldonado has proved on the right day he can be excellent, but he's still incredibly inconsistent. I think this year is a bit of a no hoper, it's extreme but maybe giving up on this season pretty early on and throwing all their money at next year's car to get an upper hand with the rule changes could shoot them up the grid. But do they have enough money?

5. I hope McLaren pick up the pace, I want to see what Perez can do in a good car. I have a bad feeling about Mercedes, like last year where Schumacher was on course for both a win and one or two podiums and retired from all those races, and then both the cars struggled to finish in the points by the end of the season. Williams or Torro Rosso could go either way, as could Sauber and Force India who both look strong. But I think Red Bull (and Ferrari on a god day) will be the team(s) to beat. 

Both Felipe Massa and Esteban Gutierrez get three place grid penalties for impeding during qualifying. Grid looks as follows:

1. Nico Rosberg (Mercedes)
2. Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)
3. Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull)
4. Kimi Raikkonen (Lotus)
5. Fernando Alonso (Ferrari)
6. Romain Grosjean (Lotus)
7. Mark Webber (Red Bull)
8. Sergio Perez (McLaren)
9. Felipe Massa (Ferrari) +3 Place Penalty
10. Paul di Resta (Force India)
11. Daniel Ricciardo (Toro Rosso)
12. Jean-Eric Vergne (Toro Rosso)
13. Adrian Sutil (Force India)
14. Jenson Button (McLaren)
15. Nico Hulkenberg (Sauber)
16. Valtteri Bottas (Williams)
17. Pastor Maldonado (Williams)
18. Giedo van der Garde (Caterham)
19. Esteban Gutierrez (Sauber) +3 Place Penalty
20. Jules Bianchi (Marussia)
21. Max Chilton (Marussia)
22. Charles Pic (Caterham) 

Quite a fall from grace for Williams - pole and the win last year, to both cars out in Q1 this year

Ouch!

Quite a fall from grace for Williams - pole and the win last year, to both cars out in Q1 this year

Ouch!

Avenger1324

Yes - things going from bad to worse for them at the moment! Not what British racing fans wanted to see at all! 

Anyone been watching the GP2 stuff? Johnny Cecotto man, jeez... and I thought Maldonado was bad!Redders1989

Oh man, Will Buxton was livid. Cecotto single-handedly turned the race into the last laps of Bristol. Cecotto, what on Earth were you doing? 

Anyway, here's a bit of humor before the race.

All I'll say about that race is this:

Esteban Gutierrez started in 19th. He finished ahead of Lewis Hamilton, who started 2nd. 

EDIT: Paul Hembery has just said on Twitter that Pirelli "got it wrong", and will look to get changes in place, aiming for Silverstone.

I don't know whether this is stupid, or hilarious, but Alonso has been called up to the stewards for "receiving an object after the end-of-race signal". As in, the Spanish flag he picked up from the marshal.

In good news, no further action as a result. Good.

Not heard anything yet about the fact that stewards were checking Alonso's car, however. 

Interesting race in many ways but 82 pit stops feels like a lot!

DotD: Alonso

SotD: di Resta ( leading Brit ) 

DoTD: Gutierrez - leads the race, makes fewer pit stops (I think) and almost gets a points position. Not bad from his starting position, just think how he could have done if further ahead in qualifying. Nice to see he has matured a bit from the mistakes (such as China).

SoTD: How can this be anybody but Alonso? Overtakes when needed to at the start, bold moves, and gets past Vettel as well. Nice drive and does this for the fans at his home race.

QoTD: "I can't go any slower" - what the heck is going on at Mercedes? Why can they not translate Qualifying pace to Race pace? Surely they are not under fuelling their cars to just show good pace on one lap and poor pace during the race?

QoTD: "I can't go any slower" - what the heck is going on at Mercedes? Why can they not translate Qualifying pace to Race pace? Surely they are not under fuelling their cars to just show good pace on one lap and poor pace during the race?

Garfield360UK

Well one fast lap with a slowish in and out lap on very low fuel won't ever bring tyre usage into the equation. The Merc is very very quick BUT it chews through tires quicker than anyone else. If they sort that out they will do a "Red Bull" from pole and we will have boring races again ( albeit with a good driver winning :) )

I think it's that simple. 

I just wander how it could be eating the tyres so fast. My impression is they did not do huge changes from the car they ran last year so if that is the case, they should qualify around the places they finish. I guess it would be nice to see them get some good results, Nico especially after Malayisa. I honestly thought there was a good chance they would win yesterday, especially when Nico was first still after lap one and he didn't get dragged down with DRS like usually happens if a slower car is leading.

It will be curious to see what happens in Monaco if they actually qualify on pole again, as with limited overtaking options there, they could use that to their advantage and just run slow and pit with everybody else thus avoiding the leapfrog effect.

DotD: Fernando Alonso

SoTD: Fernando Alonso 

I reckon the same, If Merc lock out front row, they could win it, but don't discount Alonso, Vettel or Kimi, Personally I think we already have our three title rivals in these 3.kipi19

I agree - we aren't going to see a "first time" champion this year!! 

I knew having this picture would be useful one day.