After four flyaway races that ranged from Melbourne to Sochi (a distance of some 8700 miles as the Speedbird flies, which it doesn't, at least not that route), the happy clowns of the F1 Circus find themselves home.  Well, "home" in that they're now in the European leg of the season and can now drive to the races.  Instead of packing everything tightly into the maw of a DHL 747 (well, multiple 747s if you're talking all the teams), the teams now pack everything tightly into their transporters, hospitality semis, personal cars, and luggage and drive to the track.  The ease of access to their home bases also means that this is where we start to see the upgrades appear... a new wing here, a replacement nose there, a new spec power unit someplace else, it's almost like a new season is beginning.  And where better to begin this new season at the track that everybody knows like the backs of their hands, the Circuit de Barcalounger-Catalunya?  Here's the map for the 2016 Grand Prix of Spain:

It used to be that the teams did so much testing here that they knew where every paint chip was missing on the curbs, where to find every hairline crack in the pavement, where every rise, ease, bump and dip was located.  Since they no longer run tens of thousands of kilometers here every offseason, that's only partially true now, but there's still very few tracks the teams know as well as Barcalounger.  It's as if it's part of the F1 DNA... unravel the double-helix, and you'll find one strand lays itself out as Silverstone, the other strand like Barca.

Because of that, it's rare that a race in Spain is any good: 13 of the past 15 have been won from pole, for instance.  There's just no surprises waiting to catch out an unsuspecting driver, because there's no such thing as an unsuspecting driver at Barca.  It's not even a bad layout, all things being equal, it's just hard to pass here.  Of course, DRS has made that less true than it has been, but 2015's race was notable for being remarkably dull, even by the standards of dull F1 races.  The only real excitement was the running over of two different front jackmen during pit stops (to be fair, brake failure caused one of the incidents... the other was caused by driver failure... to stop!  Ha!  I slay me!).

So why should we watch this race?  Well, reason one is that we're F1 fans and that's what we do.  Reason two is that Nico Rosberg is gunning for his eighth consecutive win and fifth in a row in-season... which, ohbytheway would move him equal to names like Brabham, Clark, Mansell and... oh, will you look at that, Hamilton!  A third reason would be to see how Haas adapts to the equipment upgrades. 

Of course the Legendary Announce Team will be doing their usual excellent work this weekend; here's the broadcast schedule for your edification:
Friday
Practice 2: 7a - 830a live on NBCSN
Saturday
Quals: 7a - 830a live on NBCSN
Sunday
2016 Grand Prix of Spain: 6a - 9a live on NBCSN

As always, all times Central Pond Time.  Doublecheck your schedules, just to be sure.  Subtract two hours for west coast, add one hour for east coast, and if you're onboard the ISS,well, you're on your own.  As is usual, the F1 Update! gang will be along sometime afterwards with their writeup of questionable quality.   See ya then.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 06:27 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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