Luke’s Weekend Take – Spanish GP 2024

We now take a look at FP3 where it will be the last chance for the teams to iron out their issues ahead of qualifying later on. We had a minor incident before FP3 as the McLaren Hospitality had a fire, but luckily no one was injured, and it didn’t seem to have any delays on the session as both drivers were in the garage in time and suited in their gear to go out.

The main thing that drivers are trying to figure out is where they need to push on a Hot Lap, this is because the tyres do not last a whole lap and the drivers either haver to compromise on Sector 1 or Sector 3 and find out which will end up giving them the quickest time overall round the Spanish GP track. Another issue that drivers were having is padding for their knees as we hear both Lance Stroll and George Russell come on the radio asking for some knee padding as they were getting some knee pain, this is all suspected to be because of Turn 3 where it is a long right hander and drivers build up speed going round this corner and gradually increases the G Force on their bodies.

Leclerc is also head on the radio, but he didn’t come on to ask for any padding, he was praising the team on the good job they done with the setup of the car as he said the car is much better to drive compared to the Friday. This was also showing true for Sainz as we see both their lap times being much better and competitive. Towards the back half of the session we see the wind picking up a bit and this was catching some drivers off guard as we see some drivers going wide on some corners dipping their wheels into the gravel, luckily no one was able to lose control of the car and apart from losing some time on their laps, no crashes occurred.

Then in the closing stages of the session is where it all went a bit crazy, we start by looking at a moment between Lewis Hamilton and Lance Stroll as we see Hamilton in the middle of the track impeding Stroll on his hot lap, realizing very late, Hamilton moves to the side and puts his hand up to apologise but Stroll seems to get a bit too close in frustration towards Hamilton and ended up making contact with the Mercedes and picking up some damage to his floor on his Aston Martin in the process. Similar incident happened between Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris as we see the pair both on Hot Laps and then we see Norris back out of his lap and in the process, he seemed to have impeded Leclerc a bit and in frustration we also see Leclerc touch with Norris. Then later on the same lap, Norris and Verstappen seemed to have been impeding Sainz on his Hot Lap.

All these incidents were noted and will be investigated after the session. Usually you do not see any action come out of these incidents in free practice other then some warnings, however due to the severity of some of these incidents, I wouldn’t be surprised if the stewards actually hand out some actual penalties. At the end of FP3 we see the Sainz the home hero top the leaderboard followed by Lando Norris and Charles Leclerc who were all separated by 0.037 seconds between them suggesting that qualifying will be an interesting one.

Now we look at the most important session of the weekend as most of the races in the past here, the race has been won from pole or from the front row. We get news from the stewards that both Stroll and Leclerc got away with a slap on the wrist for their dangerous driving in FP3 as they only got a reprimand from the stewards and both Ferrari and Aston Martin must be relieved with the news that their drivers won’t be incurring any grid drops ahead of the race on Sunday.

After the initial runs in Q1 we see Ferrari coming out on top as Leclerc was able to put in an impressive lap straight away topping Verstappen by 0.049 seconds with Sainz down in 4^th a tenth behind his teammate with everyone else being over 7 tenths off the pace, in the elimination zone we had Alex Albon, Yuki Tsunoda, Zhou Guanyu, Kevin Magnussen and Logan Sargeant. One incident that peaked the stewards interest was between Logan Sargeant and Lance Stroll as Stroll found Sargeant on the racing line while he was on a fast lap and it being qualifying, this will most likely be a grid drop and a penalty for Sargeant. At the end of Q1 we end up losing Kevin Magnussen, Yuki Tsunoda, Daniel Ricciardo, Alex Albon and Logan Sargeant.

Q2 kicks off and it was Red Bull who came out on top as Verstappen manages to clock the fastest time in the initial run in Q2 as he was able to go 2 tenths faster than Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz who were in the top 3 while we had Valtteri Bottas, Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton, Lance Stoll and Zhou Guanyu, however it is worth noting that Hamilton was on a used set of tyres which is why he was in the bottom 5. For the last runs everyone in the top 5 stayed in the pits as they thought they were safe and was better to save their tyres for Q3, and after the final runs we end up losing Fernando Alonso, Valtteri Bottas, Nico Hulkenberg, Lance Stroll and Zhou Guanyu.

Now for the final session of Qualifying and the last chance for drivers to get in the top grid spot and give themselves the best chance ahead of the race tomorrow on Sunday. After the initial runs we see Max Verstappen on provisional pole followed by Lando Norris and Lewis Hamilton on the Top 3, Ferrari only good for the 3^rd row so far as they slot in 5^th and 6^th after the first runs. Oscar Piastri on his one and only lap goes onto the Gravel in Sector 3 and goes over the white line which means he won’t have a time in Q3 and will start in P10. After everyone finished the final runs, we see Lando Norris snatching pole from Max Verstappen by 0.020 seconds, following Verstappen was Lewis Hamilton in 3^rd, George Russell, Charles Leclerc, Carlos Sainz, Pierre Gasly, Sergio Perez, Esteban Ocon and Oscar Piastri. Consolation prize for Piastri is that Perez will drop to P11 due to his penalty from Canada and will move Piastri to P9 and promote Alonso in P10.

Who do you think will come out on top tomorrow? Will the front row be victorious again, or will someone be able to pull a blinder strategy and come out on top? Keep an eye out tomorrow for the post-race article to get all the action.