Spanish Grand Prix Preview 2010

Get excited about the Spanish Grand Prix

Here are seven reasons to look forward to this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix.

1. Fernando Alonso will be racing for Ferrari in front of his home crowd for the first time. The pressure on Alonso is enormous in Spain and that will only be magnified now that he is driving for the Scuderia. He responded to the pressure brilliantly in 2003 and 2006, but made amateurish mistakes in 2007 (running off at turn one) and 2008 (spinning on the warm up lap). It will be fascinating to see how he responds this year and the atmosphere will be electric if he hits the front.

2. Mercedes are bringing a new longer wheelbase car that should better suit Michael Schumacher’s driving style. The German took his first win for Ferrari in Barcelona in 1996 under mounting pressure to score a decent result, so will be hoping for a similar drive this year that restores some of his lost pride. He would dearly love to outqualify Nico Rosberg for the first time and this is his best opportunity yet.

3. Jenson Button has a good chance of holding onto his unexpected championship lead with an improving McLaren at his fingertips. Lewis Hamilton will also be trying to reassert himself as the team’s number one driver so the battle between the two Brits is going to be intense.

4. Lotus will have a hugely revised car in Barcelona and Mike Gascoyne expects the T127 to be around 1.5 seconds per lap quicker than it was in China. This means Lotus will nipping on the heels of the existing teams, so this race will be a significant step towards Lotus winning their 74th Grand Prix someday in the future.

5. Incredibly, for the fourth race in a row, there is a chance of rain this weekend. There is nothing like changeable weather to make a Grand Prix exciting, and although it’s only a 30% chance on Sunday, it ’s seems likely to fall at some point over the weekend.

6. The Circuit de Catalunya is very hard on tyres which means drivers that make an early pitstop (and have an advantage during the middle of the race) could be very marginal towards the end. The late stages should be very exciting if the teams have opted for a mix of strategies.

7. The first corner in Barcelona is always special to watch. This year the circuit boasts the longest start/finish straight in the championship, and that means the drag race down to turn one at the start will be particularly fast and exciting.

The Spanish Grand Prix has produced some rather dull races in the past, and with the quality of ‘the show’ a hot topic in F1 at the moment, a processional race in Spain is likely to be used as further evidence to change the regulations. However, that is not entirely fair. It is still too early to be judging the effectiveness of the refuelling ban on F1 strategy, especially at a track where overtaking is difficult, and a quiet race in Spain is far from being unusual.

Arguments about the 2010 regulations will be more meaningful once we’ve seen races on a variety of different circuits, such as Monaco and Silverstone. The Spanish Grand Prix might not be the most exciting race of the year, but that doesn’t necessarily mean Formula One is broken.

Posted by Martin Porter. - Follow him on twitter @mpondaweb.

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