Autobayng News Team
Mercedes are romping to the constructors’ championship but as they’ve seen before in Spain their battling drivers could be the biggest threat to their hopes of winning. Here are the talking points for this weekend’s race.
Will Mercedes win them all?
Six races in and Mercedes have seldom looked in danger of being beaten in a straight fight. Only in Miami, where their rivals brought significant upgrades before them, did anyone get close.
Mercedes’ winning margins may not always have been huge but, as in Monaco, Safety Cars have interfered at times. They’ve won on permanent and temporary tracks, fast layouts and the slowest track on the calendar.
On the face of it, they look entirely capable of winning every round on the calendar – something no team has ever done. The most realistic threat might be a repeat of what happened at this track 10 years ago…
Have they really sorted their starts?
Earlier in the year the inferiority of Mercedes’ starts – and the superiority of Ferrari’s – was a major point of difference between the two teams. Mercedes appear to have made gains lately and have lost fewer places at the start over the last few rounds.
But Monaco and Montreal feature two of the shortest runs to the first corner seen all year. Catalunya has one of the longest, and will give a clearer read on the real state of play.
What does five months’ progress look like?
F1 returns to the Circuit de Catalunya for the first time since the latest generation of cars made their debut behind closed doors.
How much faster have F1 cars got since then? Lewis Hamilton’s top time of 1’16.348 is the benchmark.
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The next generation
Tomorrow’s opening practice session will see a clutch of aspiring F1 drivers take to the track. Among those making their debuts in official F1 sessions are multiple IndyCar race-winner Colton Herta, at Cadillac, while the reigning Formula 2 champion will take over the reigning Formula 1 champion’s car: Leonardo Fornaroli making his debut in Lando Norris’s McLaren.
Other unfamiliar names on the timing screens will include Ayumu Iwasa at Red Bull (in Isack Hadjar’s car), Frederik Vesti at Mercedes (Antonelli), Paul Aron at Audi (Nico Hulkenberg), Dino Beganovic at Ferrari (Lewis Hamilton) and Luke Browning at Williams (Alexander Albon).
Barcelona vs Madrid
For the first time since 2012, Spain is hosting two rounds of the world championship this year. Since then, the Circuit de Catalunya has revised its layout, removing the pedestrian chicane at the end of the lap and returning the last two corners to their former glory.
We’ll have to wait until September to see how F1’s newest track in Madrid compares. But it surely cannot fail to be considered an improvement on Valencia’s unloved street track. F1 will surely hope so, having handed it a 10-year contract before the first race has even happened.
A point for the home favourites?
Just three years ago either of Spain’s two Formula 1 drivers could have been considered realistic candidates to win their home races. But times have changed for Fernando Alonso and Carlos Sainz Jnr.
Both have at least scored points this year, Alonso performing a minor miracle to drag his AMR26 home 10th in Monaco. Don’t bet on a repeat of that this weekend, but Williams have been on the fringes of the top 10, giving hope to Sainz.
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McLaren’s real 1,000th grand prix?
Having marked their 1,000th grand prix in Monaco last week McLaren will continue to sport their commemorative livery for a second weekend in a row. That seems particularly appropriate as, strictly speaking, this should be their 1,000th grand prix start.
When the season began, McLaren had started 994 grands prix (they observed their 900th start at the 2021 Qatar Grand Prix). Significantly, this total does not include the 2005 United States Grand Prix, where McLaren participated in practice but did not start the grand prix.
McLaren were originally due to reach their milestone 1,000th start at the fifth round of the season in Miami. However two rounds before that were cancelled, delaying their 1,000th start to Monaco.
But in China, although McLaren participated in the sprint race, neither car started the grand prix: both were pushed off the grid before the start. Therefore, Monaco was the 999th grand prix contested by at least one McLaren and their 1,000th race is this weekend. Perhaps they used their special livery for two weekends in a row to cover themselves either way.
Last year’s unanswered question
Max Verstappen put himself in serious danger of a ban with his stunning and seemingly deliberate collision with George Russell at this race 12 months ago. The reaction to it clearly rankled deeply with the Red Bull driver, who earlier this year threw a journalist out of a press conference for daring to ask him a question about it several months earlier.
Having lost last year’s world championship by much less than the nine points he cost himself, Verstappen knows as well as anyone it was a lapse in judgement which cost him a fifth consecutive world championship. His hostility to being challenged on it means he may probably never address the unanswered question: what exactly was he trying to achieve by pointing his car at Russell’s?
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Are you going to the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix?
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2026 Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix
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- Verstappen “surprised” FIA ruled Red Bull have best combustion engine
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- Clean sweep for Mercedes? McLaren’s real 1,000th start? Eight Catalunya talking points
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