Grand Prix 2010 Spanish Grand Prix Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

Well at last after what seems like an age we are back on the grid for the 5th race of the season. It's the first of the European races and the first chance for a lot of teams to introduce a few upgrades that they hope will bring them those all important few 10ths. Unlike the British General Election, at least we are guaranteed a result come Sunday evening.

Mercedes will be the team to watch at the front end of the grid after they have introduced several huge aero revisions to their car and hopefully corrected that all important weight distribution. They have also introduced a new and radically re-designed engine cover.

Red Bull have got a new front wing, floor, side pods, engine cover and rear wing so they will be hoping to put their reliability woes behind them and turn raw speed into final results.

Lotus are another team that are hoping that their improved package will bring the 1sec plus improvements that they were talking up a few weeks ago.

Virgin were looking to have resolved their fuel tank issues but due to various delays including the flight issues over the Icelandic ash cloud, they will only start this race with one modified car which will go to Timo Glock. Given that they have only managed to cross the line once this season any sort of finish would be an improvement.

Paul Di Resta will once again sub for Adrian Sutil at Force India and the "Driver with Experience" talked about in Autosport at HRT will be Christian Klien who will take the car in first practice in order to help the team develop.

There are plenty of things to look out for this weekend and if it remains unaffected by weather we could get a good idea of the pace of the cars for at least the next couple of races.
 
Re: 2010 Spanish GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

This race should give us a better idea of who is where, assuming it stays dry...

Most of the teams are bringing upgrades so we could even see a change in the order if some teams have managed to make significant gains in speed.
 
Re: 2010 Spanish GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

BBC still predicting rain across the weekend I see.



I must say it looked oddly cloudy at Montmelo in FP1. Will be interesting to see what happens to the track in FP2.

Hulkenberg had what looked like an engine failure but it was difficult to tell - it may just have been hydraulics.
 
Re: 2010 Spanish GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

We all know that practice times aren't indicative of qualifying and race pace but Lewis Hamilton and McLaren seem to be right up there.

Lewis set the fastest time in all 3 sectors and McLaren finished 1-2.
 
Re: 2010 Spanish GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

McLaren stated yesterday that they are still focused on their qualifying performance. Michael Schumacher's time suggests that they could be closer to McLaren, on the hand it may suggest that McLaren haven't made as much progress as they would have liked.
:dunno:

McLaren seemed content with their performance on low fuel and went straight on to full tanks for their next runs so that says they are reasonably content.
 
Re: 2010 Spanish GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

Is there a timetable for the heavy rain shower due on Saturday? If it is due at 6am, it will have little effect and if it's 6pm it will have just as little impact. :bored:
 
Re: 2010 Spanish GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

snowy said:
Is there a timetable for the heavy rain shower due on Saturday? If it is due at 6am, it will have little effect and if it's 6pm it will have just as little impact. :bored:
If you click on the "More detailed weather" link on the graphic above, you can then click on the day and get a breakdown.
 
Re: 2010 Spanish GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

Brogan said:
snowy said:
Is there a timetable for the heavy rain shower due on Saturday? If it is due at 6am, it will have little effect and if it's 6pm it will have just as little impact. :bored:
If you click on the "More detailed weather" link on the graphic above, you can then click on the day and get a breakdown.

Heavy rain all day then! :D
 
Re: 2010 Spanish GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

Don't forget there are usually always some of us hanging around in Chat during each session.
 
Re: 2010 Spanish GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

Red Bull once again top the timings followed by McLaren.

Vettel is a massive 0.7 seconds ahead of teammate Mark Webber but he did set his fastest time when yellow flags were being waved so we will have to wait and see if there are any repercussions.
 
Re: 2010 Spanish GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

Has to be said the red bulls are looking awesomely quick and it looks like they weren't joking when they reportedly said they found 0.3 secs a lap with the new updates earlier in the week
 
Re: 2010 Spanish GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

Virgin built a decent car for Bahrain, beat Lotus, and now administrative problems are going to soon see them behind HRT.
 
Re: 2010 Spanish GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

What can I say, but - About Time! Small money for them, but at least there's some punishment that's been handed out not only to Ferrari, but to Alonso.... I was beginning to wonder if that would ever happen
 
Re: 2010 Spanish GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

Just to put it into context, these are the other fines for similar transgressions

2008 European - Felipe Massa, €10,000
2009 German - Red Bull, €10,000

All other recent instances have resulted in drive-throughs, 25 seconds of added time or reprimands.
 
Re: 2010 Spanish GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

Since you have the data at your fingertips :) , were the other instances that incurred fines during a race, or practice/quali.

I was just wondering because when I first saw it it struck me that the race penalties couldn't be applied so a nominal fine was used, which I think is a good thing, and maybe it wouldn't hurt to add these penalties to the standard race penalties and put the towards the marshalls' xmas bonus or summat...
 
Re: 2010 Spanish GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

GeoffP said:
Since you have the data at your fingertips :) , were the other instances that incurred fines during a race, or practice/quali.
I knew you were going to ask that :D

I was just wondering because when I first saw it it struck me that the race penalties couldn't be applied so a nominal fine was used, which I think is a good thing, and maybe it wouldn't hurt to add these penalties to the standard race penalties and put the towards the marshalls' xmas bonus or summat...
Yes, the fines are for incidents during practice and qualifying and the other penalties are during the race, except for Ferrari during the 2008 European GP where they escaped with a fine and the 2009 Hungarian GP when Red Bull were only reprimanded.

  • 2005 San Marino - Race, Ralf Schumacher finished 8th but was given a 25 second time penalty for an unsafe pit lane manoeuvre
  • 2008 European - Race, Ferrari were fined €10,000 for an unsafe pit lane manoeuvre when they released Felipe Massa into the path of Adrian Sutil
  • 2008 Singapore - Race, Felipe Massa was given a drive-through penalty for an unsafe pit lane manoeuvre
  • 2009 German - Qualifying, Red Bull-Renault were fined €10,000 and reprimanded for an unsafe pit lane manoeuvre when they released Sebastian Vettel into the path of another car during qualifying
  • 2009 Hungarian - Race, Red Bull were reprimanded for an unsafe pit lane manoeuvre when they released Mark Webber into the path of another car
  • 2009 Belgian - Race, Mark Webber was given a drive-through penalty for an unsafe pit lane manoeuvre
  • 2009 Brazilian - Race, Heikki Kovalainen finished 9th but was given a 25 second time penalty for an unsafe pit lane manoeuvre
  • 2010 Spanish - Qualifying, Ferrarri were fined $20,000 for an unsafe pit lane manoeuvre when they released Fernando Alonso into the path of Nico Rosberg during qualifying
 
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