Your guide to the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix

 

The Spanish Grand Prix is a Formula One race currently held at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in Barcelona. The race is one of the oldest in the world still contested, celebrating its centenary in 2013.

The race had modest beginnings as a production car race. Interrupted by the First World War, the race waited a decade for its second running before becoming a staple of the European calendar. It was promoted to the European Championship in 1935 before the Spanish Civil War brought an end to racing. The race was successfully revived in 1967 and has been a regular part of the Formula One World Championship since 1968 at a variety of venues.

 

Spanish Grand Prix, Fifth round of the 2016 Formula 1 season

Circuit Name: Circuit de Barcelona – Catalunya

Race Laps: 66

Circuit Length: 4.655 km (2.892 mi)

Race Length: 307.104 km (190.825 mi)

Number of corners: 16 (9 Right, 7 Left)

DRS Zone: Two Zones (Zone 1 between turns 9 and 10, Zone 2 Start/Finish Line Between Turn 16 and 1)

Circuit Direction: Clockwise

Pole Position 2015: Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:24.681

 

Pirelli used compounds

Team	Car #	Driver	Hard	Medium	Soft
Mercedes AMG	44	Lewis Hamilton	1	5	7
	6	Nico Rosberg	1	5	7
Scuderia Ferrari	5	Sebastian Vettel	1	4	8
	7	Kimi Raikkonen	1	4	8
Williams-Mercedes	19	Felipe Massa	1	5	7
	77	Valtteri Bottas	1	5	7
Red Bull Racing	3	Daniel Ricciardo	2	4	7
	26	Daniil Kvyat	2	4	7
Force India-Mercedes	11	Sergio Perez	2	5	6
	27	Nico Hulkenberg	2	5	6
Renault	20	Kevin Magnussen	2	4	7
	30	Jolyon Palmer	1	5	7
Toro Rosso-Ferrari	33	Max Verstappen	1	6	6
	55	Carlos Sainz Jr.	2	5	6
Sauber-Ferrari	9	Marcus Ericsson	2	6	5
	12	Felipe Nasr	2	6	5
McLaren-Honda	14	Fernando Alonso	1	5	7
	22	Jenson Button	1	5	7
Manor-Mercedes	88	Rio Haryanto	2	5	6
	94	Pascal Wehrlein	2	5	6
Haas-Ferrari	8	Romain Grosjean	2	3	8
	21	Esteban Gutierrez	1	4	8

 

Pirelli will bring the following three compounds to the fifth round of the 2016 Formula One season in Spain, to be held (13 – 15 May) on The Barcelona Circuit

P Zero Orange hard: Seen for the first time this year, but no driver has chosen more than one set.

P Zero White medium: A versatile tyre that is a good compromise between performance and durability.
P Zero Yellow soft: More than a second faster than the White medium in Barcelona, but unlikely to last for long.

The tires that Pirelli has said must be used at some point in the race:
One set of P Zero Orange hard
One set of P Zero White medium
Each driver must have both these sets available for the race, and must use at least one of them.

The tires assigned for Q3 in qualifying:
One set of P Zero Yellow soft.

 

HOW IT WAS A YEAR AGO:

Winner: Rosberg (two stops: started on medium, medium again on lap 15, hard on lap 44).

Best-placed alternative strategy: Hamilton, second with three stops (just the penultimate stint on the hard tyre).

Most drivers: A mixture of two and three stop strategies, with most teams adopting a flexible approach.

PAUL HEMBERY, PIRELLI MOTORSPORT DIRECTOR:

“Spain always provides a very big test for the tyres due to the high energy loads that the circuit generates, and this year that will especially be the case with most teams having favoured the softer compounds in their selections. Of course they will be able to rely on the data accumulated during pre-season testing, but at this time of year we expect conditions to be much warmer. As a result we should see high wear and degradation leading to several pit stops, which of course opens up a very large number of strategic variables for the grand prix.”

WHAT’S NEW?

After the grand prix there will be a two-day in season test, which most teams will attend.

The 2017 tyre development programme is underway, with Jean-Eric Vergne testing a modified 2014 Ferrari at Mugello last week.

The GP2 Series and GP3 Series gets underway this weekend, with a strong field in each and some new tyres for GP3, which has an entirely new car for 2016.

 

Drivers / Teams compound choices

Team	Car #	Driver	Hard	Medium	Soft
Mercedes AMG	44	Lewis Hamilton	1	5	7
	6	Nico Rosberg	1	5	7
Scuderia Ferrari	5	Sebastian Vettel	1	4	8
	7	Kimi Raikkonen	1	4	8
Williams-Mercedes	19	Felipe Massa	1	5	7
	77	Valtteri Bottas	1	5	7
Red Bull Racing	3	Daniel Ricciardo	2	4	7
	26	Daniil Kvyat	2	4	7
Force India-Mercedes	11	Sergio Perez	2	5	6
	27	Nico Hulkenberg	2	5	6
Renault	20	Kevin Magnussen	2	4	7
	30	Jolyon Palmer	1	5	7
Toro Rosso-Ferrari	33	Max Verstappen	1	6	6
	55	Carlos Sainz Jr.	2	5	6
Sauber-Ferrari	9	Marcus Ericsson	2	6	5
	12	Felipe Nasr	2	6	5
McLaren-Honda	14	Fernando Alonso	1	5	7
	22	Jenson Button	1	5	7
Manor-Mercedes	88	Rio Haryanto	2	5	6
	94	Pascal Wehrlein	2	5	6
Haas-Ferrari	8	Romain Grosjean	2	3	8
	21	Esteban Gutierrez	1	4	8

 

Australian Grand Prix Winners (By year)

Year	Driver	Constructor	Circuit
2015	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	Catalunya
2014	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes
2013	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari
2012	Pastor Maldonado	Williams–Renault
2011	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull–Renault
2010	Mark Webber	Red Bull–Renault
2009	Jenson Button	Brawn–Mercedes
2008	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari
2007	Felipe Massa	Ferrari
2006	Fernando Alonso	Renault
2005	Kimi Räikkönen	McLaren–Mercedes
2004	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari
2003	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari
2002	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari
2001	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari
2000	Mika Häkkinen	McLaren–Mercedes
1999	Mika Häkkinen	McLaren–Mercedes
1998	Mika Häkkinen	McLaren–Mercedes
1997	Jacques Villeneuve	Williams–Renault
1996	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari
1995	Michael Schumacher	Benetton–Renault
1994	Damon Hill	Williams–Renault
1993	Alain Prost	Williams–Renault
1992	Nigel Mansell	Williams–Renault
1991	Nigel Mansell	Williams–Renault
1990	Alain Prost	Ferrari	Jerez
1989	Ayrton Senna	McLaren–Honda
1988	Alain Prost	McLaren–Honda
1987	Nigel Mansell	Williams–Honda
1986	Ayrton Senna	Lotus–Renault
1985	Not held
–
1982
1981	Gilles Villeneuve	Ferrari	Jarama
1979	Patrick Depailler	Ligier–Ford
1978	Mario Andretti	Lotus–Ford
1977	Mario Andretti	Lotus–Ford
1976	James Hunt	McLaren–Ford
1975	Jochen Mass	McLaren–Ford	Montjuïc
1974	Niki Lauda	Ferrari	Jarama
1973	Émerson Fittipaldi	Lotus–Ford	Montjuïc
1972	Émerson Fittipaldi	Lotus–Ford	Jarama
1971	Jackie Stewart	Tyrrell–Ford	Montjuïc
1970	Jackie Stewart	March–Ford	Jarama
1969	Jackie Stewart	Matra–Ford	Montjuïc
1968	Graham Hill	Lotus–Ford	Jarama
1966	Not held
–
1955
1954	Mike Hawthorn	Ferrari	Pedralbes
1953	Not held
–
1952
1951	Juan Manuel Fangio	Alfa Romeo	Pedralbes
1950	Not held
–
1936

  

Multiple Winners (Drivers)

# Wins	Driver	Years won
6	Michael Schumacher	1995, 1996, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004
3	Jackie Stewart	1969, 1970, 1971
	Nigel Mansell	1987, 1991, 1992
	Alain Prost	1988, 1990, 1993
	Mika Häkkinen	1998, 1999, 2000
2	Emerson Fittipaldi	1972, 1973
	Mario Andretti	1977, 1978
	Ayrton Senna	1986, 1989
	Kimi Räikkönen	2005, 2008
	Fernando Alonso	2006, 2013

 

Multiple Winners (Constructors)

# Wins	Constructor	Years won
12	Ferrari	1954, 1974, 1981, 1990, 1996, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2007, 2008, 2013
8	McLaren	1975, 1976, 1988, 1989, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2005
7	Williams	1987, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1997, 2012
6	Lotus	1968, 1972, 1973, 1977, 1978, 1986
4	Mercedes	1934, 1935, 2014, 2015

  

Numbers and Facts

Most wins (driver) 6 – Michael Schumacher 1995 – 1996 – 2001 – 2002 –2003 – 2004

Most wins (constructor) 12 Ferrari 1954 – 74 – 81 – 90 – 96 – 2001 – 02 – 03 – 04 – 07 – 08 – 13

Wins from pole position 25 Recent 2015

Lowest grid for past winner 11 Jochen Mass – 1975

Most recent 1-2 finish 2015 Mercedes (Nico Rosberg- Lewis Hamilton)

Most emphatic win (here) 2 laps 1969 – Jackie Stewart-Bruce McLaren (Montjuic Park)

Closest winning margin 0.014S, 1986 – Ayrton Senna-Nigel Mansell (Jerez)

Rain-affected races 3, 1972 – 1992 – 1996

Safety Car-affected races 4, 2003 – 2005 – 2008 – 2009

Red Flag (and result declared) races 1, 1975

Fastest race 2006 66 laps @1hr 26m 21.759s

Slowest race (here) 1954 80 laps@ 3hr 13m 52.1s (Pedrables)

Most pole positions (driver) 7 Michael Schumacher 1994 – 1995 – 2000 – 2001 – 2002 – 2003 – 2004

Most pole positions (constructor) 13 Ferrari 1951 – 68 – 71 – 72 – 74 – 75 – 2000 – 01 – 02 – 03 – 04 – 07 – 08

 

What Happened last race here?

Nico Rosberg took his first victory of the 2015 season as the Mercedes Formula 1 team secured a commanding one-two.

The German led away from pole and remained unthreatened for the duration of the race, with his team-mate Lewis Hamilton second 17.5 seconds adrift and Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel 27.7s further back in third at the finish.

Hamilton lost a place to Vettel at the start and after struggling to find a way past, Mercedes called him in to try the undercut.

But a problem fitting the left-rear tyre lost Hamilton three seconds so when Vettel pitted the next lap, he easily came out in front of him.

Hamilton did a three-stop strategy. In contrast, Vettel stayed out to suggest he was on a two-stopper. When the German pitted with 26 laps to go, he rejoined behind Hamilton, who was pushing hard to try to build a gap to enable him to pit and rejoin ahead of Vettel.

And it worked out, with Hamilton exiting the pits after his third stop, and on fresher medium tyres, well clear of Vettel.

Valtteri Bottas finished fourth for Williams, ahead of Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen and the other Williams of Felipe Massa.

Circuit de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain. Sunday 10 May 2015. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes AMG, Tony Ross, Race Engineer, Mercedes AMG, Nico Rosberg, Mercedes AMG and Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari on the podium.

 

2015 Race Classification

Pos.	Driver	Constructor	Time/Retired	Grid
1	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:41:12.555	1
2	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	+17.551	2
3	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	+45.342	3
4	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Mercedes	+59.217	4
5	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	+1:00.002	7
6	Felipe Massa	Williams-Mercedes	+1:21.314	9
7	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing-Renault	+1 Lap	10
8	Romain Grosjean	Lotus-Mercedes	+1 Lap	11
9	Carlos Sainz, Jr.	Toro Rosso-Renault	+1 Lap	5
10	Daniil Kvyat	Red Bull Racing-Renault	+1 Lap	8
11	Max Verstappen	Toro Rosso-Renault	+1 Lap	6
12	Felipe Nasr	Sauber-Ferrari	+1 Lap	15
13	Sergio Pérez	Force India-Mercedes	+1 Lap	18
14	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber-Ferrari	+1 Lap	16
15	Nico Hülkenberg	Force India-Mercedes	+1 Lap	17
16	Jenson Button	McLaren-Honda	+1 Lap	14
17	Will Stevens	Marussia-Ferrari	+3 Laps	19
18	Roberto Merhi	Marussia-Ferrari	+4 Laps	20
Ret	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus-Mercedes	Collision damage	12
Ret	Fernando Alonso	McLaren-Honda	Brakes	13

 

Did you know?

DRIVERS

✪ Lewis Hamilton will be looking for his 44th F1 career win aboard of course car ♯44.

✪ Hamilton has set 33 of his 51 pole positions to date on Pirelli tyres. It is 2 more than any other driver in the history of F1 (Vettel next-best 31)

✪ Hamilton is now just 17 pole positions from equalling Michael Schumacher’s all-time record of 68 F1 GP pole positions. Since he has

been at Mercedes he has taken pole 25 times already. That is over 40% of all races he’s started for the team (25/ 61 = 41.0%)

✪ Hamilton has won (43) 25.1% of all GP he’s started (171) and is in the top 10 drivers races to win ratio of all-time. This is how he compares:-

1. Fangio 47.0%, 2. Ascari 40.6%, 3. Clark 34.7%, 4. M.Schumacher 29.7%, 5. Ja.Stewart 27.2% 6. Vettel 26.1% (42/ 161), 7.Prost 25.6%
2. Senna 25.5%, 9. Hamilton 25.1%, 10. Moss 24.2%

✪ Hamilton has led just 1 race lap so far in 2016 (0.4%). Last year he led 587 of 1,149 race laps (51%). After 4 GP in ‘15 he’d led 168 laps (74%)

✪ If Hamilton leads in Spain he will then have led 87 F1 GP, 1 more than his idol Ayrton Senna. Only Michael Schumacher has led more (116)

✪ Just 5 points separates Hamilton from Sebastian Vettel at the top of the all-time F1 points table (1924 – 1929)

✪ Hamilton equalled Niki Lauda’s 171 GP starts in Russia. Nico Rosberg meanwhile in Russia equalled Lauda’s 24 pole positions

✪ Rosberg has won the past 7 GP. It represents his best run ever in his whole motor racing career to date

✪ An 8th win in a row for Rosberg in Spain will beat the best run achieved by Michael Schumacher (Europe 2004 to Hungary 2004 inclusive). It

would also mean that then only Sebastian Vettel and Alberto Ascari will have won more Grand Prix in a row (9) than Rosberg

✪ Rosberg’s has now won 18 GP. Nobody has won more GP and not won the driver’s title at some point in their F1 career

✪ Rosberg (45 F1 podiums) has exactly half the number of F1 podiums of Hamilton (90)

✪ Vettel in Russia equalled Ayrton Senna’s 161 GP starts. In Spain he is scheduled to beat it

✪ Vettel in 161 GP to date has won 42 while Senna managed to win 41 GP in his 161 starts

CONSTRUCTORS’

✪ Mercedes aiming for an 11th pole in a row. Mercedes’ best-ever run of poles is 23 (Great Britain 2014 to Italy 2015 inclusive), and is beaten

only by Williams’s run of 24 poles in 1992 – 93

✪ Mercedes’s next pole position will be its 50th on Pirelli tyres (currently: Mercedes-1st [49], Red Bull Racing-2nd [37}, Ferrari-3rd (21])

✪ Mercedes won its 49th F1 World Championship race victory in Russia. To date Mercedes has won just over one-third of all the F1 GP it has

has competed in (49 wins/ 131 races = 37.4%).

✪ Mercedes can beat Red Bull Racing’s 57 F1 pole positions with pole in Spain

✪ Mercedes is now just 1 win behind Red Bull’s F1 career total of 50

✪ A win on Sunday would be Mercedes’s 11th in a row and would equal the all-time record set by McLaren in 1988 (Brazil to Belgium inclusive)

✪ Mercedes has now finished in points for the last 62 GP in a row. It is the 3rd-best run of all-time. The most is 81 by Ferrari then McLaren on 64

✪ Mercedes and Ferrari have been represented on all 4 race podiums so far this season

SPANISH GRAND PRIX

✪ Ferrari has been stuck on 13 Spanish Grand Prix pole positions since 2008

✪ Ferrari has won 1 more Spanish GP (12) than the combined number of Spanish GP wins of Mercedes (2), Red Bull (2) and Williams (7)

✪ 2016 is the 30th anniversary of one of the closest finishes in F1 history. Just 0.014 separated winner Ayrton Senna’s Lotus from the Williams of

runner-up Nigel Mansell after 72 laps at Jerez (0.01? – 1971 Italian GP, 0.011 stage-managed finish to 2002 US GP)

✪ The top 4 on the starting grid last year finished the race in the same order they had started it which was 1 better than the year before when

the top 3 on the starting grid finished 1-2-3 and in the same order in the race (so, last 2 years 1-2-3 on grid finished race in same order, 1-2-3)

✪ Nobody in the history of F1 has scored more World Championship points in Spain than Fernando Alonso 120 (MSC-118, VET-92, HAM-79)

 

World Drivers’ Championship standings

Pos.	Driver	Points	Diff
1	Nico Rosberg	100
2	Lewis Hamilton	57	43
3	Kimi Räikkönen	43	57
4	Daniel Ricciardo	36	67
5	Sebastian Vettel	33	67
6	Felipe Massa	32	68
7	Romain Grosjean	22	78
8	Daniil Kvyat	21	79
9	Valtteri Bottas	19	81
10	Max Verstappen	13	87
11	Fernando Alonso	8	92
12	Kevin Magnussen	6	94
13	Nico Hülkenberg	6	94
14	Carlos Sainz, Jr.	4	96
15	Sergio Pérez	2	98
16	Jenson Button	1	99
17	stoffel Vandoorn	1	99
18	Jolyon Palmer	0
19	Marcus Ericsson	0
20	Pascal Wehrlein	0
21	Felipe Nasr	0
22	Esteban Gutiérrez	0
23	Rio Haryanto	0

 

World Constructors’ Championship standings

 

Pos.	Constructor	Points	Diff
1	Mercedes	157
2	Ferrari	76	81
3	Red Bull-TAG Heuer	57	100
4	Williams-Mercedes	51	135
5	Haas-Ferrari	22	135
6	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	17	140
7	McLaren-Honda	10	149
8	Force India-Mercedes	8	149
9	Renault	6	151
10	Sauber-Ferrari	0
11	MRT-Mercedes	0

 

Drivers penalty points:

 

Driver	Penalty points
Max Verstappen	8
Daniil Kvyat	5
Marcus Erricson	4
Romain Grosjean	4
Nico Hulkenberg	4
Valtteri Bottas	4
Sebastian Vettel	3
Kimi Raikkonen	3
Lewis Hamilton	2
Fernando Alonso	2
Rio Haryanto	2
Carlos Sainz Jr.	2
Esteban Gutierrez	2
Jenson Button