TBK-Light.com

Buono Estente,

The first European race of 2014 comes after a three week break from China, at the Circuit de Catalunya near Barcelona.

This track could see an interruption of Mercedes' dominance thus far this season with the circuit being a renowned test of the cars' aerodynamic packages and the general belief that the erstwhile all-conquering Red Bull team retain an advantage in this area. The pecking order may also be liable to change with teams likely to be bringing major upgrade packages.

The long front straight is the only real area for the cars to stretch their legs, with the majority of the rest of the circuit being long, medium speed corners that don't require much torque. The acceleration zone out of the final chicane could finally prove useful in allowing the more powerful cars to race with cars boasting a superior aero package ... or it could be another typically dull Barcelona race.

Tyre choices this year are Medium and Hard which seems a conservative choice, especially with this year's harder rubber, but the negative publicity after last year's race makes this understandable.

Circuit Map


Weather
The race is still two weeks away so it may be a bit early but this race isn't usually affected by rain, indeed it is often Scorchio!

I normally use tiempo.com for my Spanish weather ... this is their page for Montmeló where the circuit is located.
http://www.tiempo.com/montmelo.htm

Times
Standard European Race Times ...

Practice 1 Fri 10:00 Local (09:00 BST)
Practice 2 Fri 14:00 Local (13:00 BST)
Practice 3 Sat 11:00 Local (10:00 BST)
Qualifying Sat 14:00 Local (13:00 BST)
Race Sun 14:00 Local Time for Local People (13:00 BST)

Race length is 66 laps of the circuit, a total of 307km.

History

To the delight of the heavily biased Spanish TV commentary team, Fernando Alonso won last year's race which featured over a thousand pit stops, according to TBK-Light statistics. Alonso also finished runner-up in a Freak Natural Event which occurred in 2012 when Pastor Maldonado ended Williams near-decade long win drought ... such was the scale of this Freak Event, the Williams pit garage promptly caught fire. Before that were a win apiece for then Red Bull duo Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel.

The race has been held at the Circuit de Catalunya since 1991 when something genuinely exciting happened at the circuit. Its most winning driver is Michael Schumacher with his most notable triumphs being 1996 when he was competing in a different race to the other drivers, and 2001 when a spectacular Mercedes engine failure cost Mika Hakkinen victory on the final lap. Ferrari has the most wins at the circuit with 12.

Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso are current two-time winners with Felipe Massa, Jenson Button, Sebastian Vettel and Pastor Maldonado sharing a victory each the other current drivers to have won here.

That seems about all that's pertinent, anything I've missed, feel free to point it out ...

Rain plz

Still rooting for the mortar strike.

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Dan Wheldon ¦ 1978-2011
Marco Simoncelli ¦ 1987-2011
Jules Bianchi ¦ 1989-2015
Justin Wilson ¦ 1978-2015

Yeah, I know he's mad and I don't care. I do not care. I did not care then. I do not care now. I'm here to race him.

This is going to be awesome

Hoping for a Spa 1998 style start to this race!

The weather has actually been quite meh here lately. Rain and thunder yesterday, and the forecast for next weekend is quite shit. Which means that it will probably hot and dry for the race. Which is good news for me as I will be track-side all weekend

the rain in Spain doesn't fall in Montmelo

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Motorsports trend for 2024: everything is a bad taste joke now

[youtubeidiot]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8DvylZN0r8[/youtubeidiot]

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Never been Barcelona fan (the track that is). However, since they don't have testing data from this year, there should be plenty of driving in FPs. Also with new parts coming for most of the teams there may be some surprises pace-wise.
I'm maybe most looking forward to start of GP3 season. Should provide some "flipping" great action.

how I miss 1996

_________________
Motorsports trend for 2024: everything is a bad taste joke now

Would have red flagged that these days

Meant to write about the lack of testing this year meaning no data with the current engines and exhaust configurations ...

Based on Monaco '84 and Australia '91, we were lucky it wasn't red-flagged in 1996 :P

Seems it's just arbitrary wether a race got red-flagged or not, even back in those days.

Spa 97: sun shining, some water on track --> start under SC.
Spa 98: track is a swimming pool --> standing start, pile-up.

Probably the 97 SC start had everyone saying they could handle a standing start, and so they`ve got one, two actually, both had problems lol.

You have to wonder if the standing start in '98 was a direct result of the complaints that (i'm assuming) were made in '97...

There was nothing wrong with the standing start of 1998. What was wrong following the start in 1998 was Coulthard. That is all.

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BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
Formula Fun Cup Champion 2013
http://www.the-fastlane.co.uk

Hey, don't be mean about DC. 1998 was going to Be His Year :P

He slid off on a drainage back then.
I wouldn't say it was all due to the weather but I think you can't say it was all his fault either. Something in-between.

Yes you can. He maintained publicly for many years that it the incident was Irvine's fault, instead only in the past couple of years coming clean that he had made a mistake on the drainage (that you mention).

_________________
BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
Formula Fun Cup Champion 2013
http://www.the-fastlane.co.uk