Grand Prix 2013 Spanish Grand Prix Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

Four races into the season and we have seen three different winners. Sebastian Vettel won twice, Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso once each.
Vettel leads the WDC (77 points), followed by Raikkonen (67), Lewis Hamilton (50) and Alonso (47). So the race for the WDC still looks pretty open. It's great to see drivers from four different teams competing for the top spot.

The Circuit de Catalunya hosts the Spanish Grand Prix for the 23rd time. It's a track, which all the teams know exceptionally well from pre-season testing, so probably they won't experience major set-up issues...It also very often leads to pretty boring races. Last year we had a shocking victory for Williams' Pastor Maldonado, who this season doesn't have the car to compete for wins. Also his own driving looks pretty average at best.

Let's have a closer look at the current form of the four contenders for the WDC this year:

Sebastian Vettel will hope to continue his strong form, that enabled him to win the Bahrain Grand Prix pretty easily. He finished on the podium three times, and never finished worse than 4th. He overcame the controversy of the Malaysian GP and looks to be on course for a strong season again.

Kimi Raikkonen has finished on the podium three times this season and seems to be as consistent as last season. His last race in Bahrain was pretty strong. After starting eigth on the grid, he managed to finish second.

Lewis Hamilton had a pretty good start to the season. He's clearly outscoring his teammate Nico Rosberg (50-14) and seems to have matured a lot as well. His driving is much more composed, leading to him being able to deal with the tyres much better than Rosberg, who struggled throughout the most parts of the last race (From Pole Position to 9th).

Fernando Alonso had two very strong races (Australia and China) and two poor races, which were hampered by strange decisions (Malaysia) and mechanical failures (Bahrain). He'll hope for a trouble-free race in Spain, which should get him closer to Sebastian Vettel in the Championship. Another low finish though could mean that the gap to the German three-time champion could start to get bigger significantly.

Let's see how the race pans out! Have fun and discuss!
 
If Vettel struggles to overtake the Mercedes in the first few laps then he could be Cannon Fodder for the Lotus' and the Ferrari of Fernando Alonso in the DRS zone.

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Except of course for the fact he too should have DRS enabled when followings the Mercs. :)

As others have pointed out overtaking on the track there is extremely difficult anyway with or without DRS, so if the fastest qualifiers prove slower than those behind in race trim we could have a queue of cars forming behind a leading Merc, all unable to overtake each other since everyone except the leader have their DRS equally open in the DRS areas.
 
Anyone else notice that the McLaren pit crew threw little cloths over something on the rear of the sidepods every time they brought the cars in? New exhaust exits they don't want anyone to see? Shame they don't appear to be helping...
 
Well, it is questionable how much fuel was in Lewis Hamilton's car last year, but it achieved a 1:21.707 for "pole". Their fastest time in Q3 this year was 1:22.069. So they've lost four tenths.

Williams are also, obviously, slower.
 
Alonso's qually speed trap was 318kph. Vettel was at 306kph. That's crazy!
 
Any of the top five could win the race tomorrow I think, which will be interesting but I can't shake the feeling that we're just going to be waiting to see who's tyres last the longest.
 
Anyone else notice that the McLaren pit crew threw little cloths over something on the rear of the sidepods every time they brought the cars in? New exhaust exits they don't want anyone to see? Shame they don't appear to be helping...

Probably damp cloths, the exhausts heat up the bodywork on that part of the car, and it has to be cooled before they can touch or inspect it.
 
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