2013 Formula 1 Spanish Grand Prix – Fernando Alonso Shows Barcelona Brilliance
Practice FP1 brought rain that helped to cloud the results of all the updated packages throughout the field, whilst FP2 & 3 brought the much more typical sunshine of Barcelona where the top six were covered by just three-tenths of a second. Tyres were at the forefront of concerns as there were signs of heavy wear to left hand rubber and another failure similar to Bahrain. Alonso headed a Ferrari 1-2 in the wet conditions to please the Spaniards fans in the stands, and both went on to be right with the Red Bulls in the dry as their updates showed their worth. Red Bulls car looked settled and stable as it just topped the timesheets, whereas the Ferrari looked more ragged but matched their pace. Mercedes were close behind but didnt seem to have the edge, more noticeably in the wet, but perhaps this comes as the result of the improving race pace they need. Lotus were in the mix with both drivers, especially in FP3 and ran some longer runs in the dry to work on tyres. Force India followed up their strong recent pace to show they have a competitive car, taking fifth in the wet and staying clearly ahead of McLaren despite Paul di Resta suffering a rear left tyre delamination, similar to what we saw in Bahrain, near the end of FP2. McLaren languished disappointingly in the midfield despite testing their raft of updates and it didnt look like much had changed, even as they added more overnight parts onto the cars. Torro Rosso looked much stronger again as midfield leaders, with Jean-Eric Vergne the only other driver into the 1-26s in the wet with the Ferrari pair and both drivers pleased by their improved pace, showing well on hard tyres. Whilst the weather mixed things up and allowed Sauber and Williams to show themselves better, in the dry little had changed as they struggled for pace ahead of the back four. Caterham just shaded Marussia in the wet conditions, and then sandwiched them in the dry as it showed their Bahrain upgrades were still delivering.