The Spanish GP weekend is one of the most important dates in the calendar. Big updates, a new tyre compound and the hunt to stop Vettel from securing the title early continues.
The Circuit de Catalunya is where Formula One teams come to get answers. It's a favourite venue for testing and the engineers have reams of historical data, not least the two weeks-worth they gathered during pre-season testing earlier this year. Red Bull arrives as favourite for victory but there are signs that Ferrari, Lotus and Mercedes could give them a run for their money and all four teams will have updates to try to shuffle their way up the order. Sunday's result, therefore, should give one of the clearest pictures yet of how the cars stack up.
On Form
Sebastian Vettel's victory in Bahrain looked an awful lot like a return to his dominant form of 2011 and the end of 2012. However, we shouldn't be handing him the championship trophy just yet, as his main rivals were slightly hobbled over the weekend - Fernando Alonso with a sticking DRS and Kimi Raikkonen with a poor qualifying lap. What we can say with some certainty is that the Red Bull likes harder compound tyres, which backs up its early-season complaints that it was creating too much load for the softer Pirellis to handle. The medium and (new) hard compounds on offer this weekend should suit Red Bull, therefore, and the Circuit de Catalunya has long been a happy hunting ground for the team. But while Vettel looks capable of extending his lead in the championship this weekend, the next two races in Monaco and Canada will offer a very different challenge.
Out of Form
Ferrari chief designer Nikolas Tombazis gave his team just six out of ten for its performances at the opening rounds of the season. Considering the first four races have included a win in China, it goes to show just how disappointed Ferrari is with itself after Fernando Alonso's DNF in Malaysia and DRS problem in Bahrain. The team knows that to compete with Red Bull it needs to be consistently near the top, and compared to last year, Ferrari's race tactics have fallen short. On the plus side the car's performance is much more competitive than last year so making up the deficit will not seem as daunting. However, its recovery must start in Barcelona.
One to watch
At this track a year ago it looked as though Williams had announced its return to the front end of the grid with Pastor Maldonado's well-deserved victory. By contrast, getting both cars into Q2 this weekend will be seen as an achievement after a terrible start to the season. On the plus side, the team is coming to Spain off the back of a successful straight-line test and has had three weeks to go back to the drawing board and modify the troublesome FW35. In testing the car ran well at the Circuit de Catalunya so the team will also be hoping to draw on some of its pre-season data to set things straight.
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