Jaw-dropping insights from Spain’s Friday practice! Here’s what you need to know

Red Bull looks powerful across the board

Red Bull set an ominous tone in first practice, the terrifyingly fast RB19 from the get-go to lead the field by nearly a second. That margin narrowed in FP2 as Aston Martin showed a bit more of its pace, but when our data team crunched through the numbers it’s clear that Red Bull is in a dominant position.

In one lap, they have a 0.33s advantage over the rest, and they maintain it in terms of race pace (the latest data is based on running on soft tires only because there was not a sufficiently representative performance on the other two compounds for a fair race). comparison).

It is in the medium-speed corners that their advantage is most impressive: they are almost a quarter of a second quicker than the Ferraris and have less than a tenth of a second ahead of Aston Martin in those corners.

Based on these numbers, it’s no surprise that championship leader Max Verstappen was in such good spirits after Friday’s race, saying he “felt very comfortable in the car and looking after my tyres.” He added that “everything looked great.” He’s rarely so positive on a Friday, which is why he’s sinister to his rivals.

Aston Martin at the ballpark

The grandstands were packed with Fernando Alonso fans on Friday, the Spaniard saying 67% of them decked out in Aston Martin green. He couldn’t give them a lead time, but showed a change of pace to suggest, at the very least, a podium finish to reward his support is on the cards.

Our data shows the Aston Martin is only third best in low fuel races, but Alonso said the laps are unrepresentative and he believes the field is so close that if you get the ideal lap anything is possible.

Our data shows that if Alonso had put in his best run around the Barcelona track, putting all his best mini-sectors together, he would have been just a fraction behind Verstappen. That, in part, supports his theory.

Alonso looked great in the final sector, he was the only driver besides Verstappen and Ocon to blast through the fast Turn 9 and he looked powerful in the final sector, making the most of Aston Martin’s slim lead over Red Bull at the top. -speed turns. Even if he doesn’t have the car to challenge for the win, based on what he learned today, it’s hard to rule him out.

Ferrari hard to read after introducing update

Support for Alonso in Barcelona was only rivaled by his compatriot Carlos Sainz, who sold out a 3,300-seater grandstand that bore his name in just EIGHT minutes. They told me that 14,000 tried to buy them, so strong was the demand.

The Spaniard was level with teammate Charles Leclerc in FP2, the duo some three-tenths of a second off pace in both metrics.

READ MORE: Vasseur explains Ferrari’s sidepod change and how it will ‘open some doors’ for future development

Today, however, it was more about learning about its new parts, some of which were added to the car in Monaco, while others, including a different sidepod concept, were first unveiled in Spain.

It’s too early to read anything into them, but the data shows they continue to be a threat to Red Bull and Aston Martin in low-speed corners. However, the medium and high speed turns are more challenging.

Alpine causing a stir once again

Esteban Ocon is still riding high from his stellar performance in Monaco, the Frenchman turning in his best full-weekend performance in the Principality, wasting no time picking up where he left off on Friday.

The Alpine driver was the first to speed through Turn 9 in FP1, suggesting he had confidence in the early gates of the car. The Alpines are brilliantly quick on the straightaways and lead the way in high-speed corners.

At one lap they’re fourth best and level with Mercedes, and though they drop to fifth in race sims, there’s a feeling the aerodynamically efficient Alpine can make overnight gains with a few tweaks and overcome the graininess that affected all teams.

Several drivers mentioned Alpine as a threat, which is praise, and the data suggests they will, at the very least, be comfortable Q3 candidates and solid points this weekend, continuing their Monaco form despite Barcelona being a very different circuit.

Mercedes has a lot of work to do

Lewis Hamilton fears a difficult weekend ahead, the seven-time world champion believes it will be difficult to get his improved Mercedes into the top 10 based on his current feeling.

He seemed to have more problems than his teammate George Russell in the two practice sessions on Friday and while our data suggests they are a match for Alpine, and not very far. They don’t have much of an advantage over the Haas and AlphaTauri cars, which suggests it could be a close fight for Q3.

READ MORE: Hamilton fears ‘fighting for top 10’ in Spanish GP qualifying as Russell delivers verdict on Mercedes updates

As for race pace, things are looking better: Hamilton says the pace doesn’t look “terrible”, while Russell thinks they can make some steps in that area before Sunday to improve their form.

They seem to have the fourth-best car on that metric, with a healthy lead over Alpine. Fortunately for them, the consensus is that overtaking should be a bit easier with the corner change, although they will need to pick up speed on the straights – only two teams were worse than them – if they are to make any progress. the race.