2026 F1 Barcelona GP Friday analysis by Peter Windsor

[00:00:13]Friday at the recently renamed Barcelona Catalunia Grand Prix. That's because we have the Spanish Grand Prix coming up in Madrid in September. Was was a straightforward affair relatively speaking. The big story lines, McLaren, Mercedes looking very good. Very, very good car. Leonardo for Naroli was able to jump straight into the car and go very quickly indeed. Quite wide turnins, couple of mistakes, but still the lap time was there. Very committed. Good to see. Talented driver as we've always said. Uh, but it just showed this weekend how good that McLaren is that he can just jump in and have that level of confidence on the soft tire. So, Landon Norris and Oscar Pastry making very good use of that. Similarly, wide turnins, just generally a little bit ragged on both their laps, but first and third by the end of practice on Friday. Just a note there, the soft tire looks pretty good in terms of potentially being a race tire. Equally, doesn't seem to be that much quicker than the medium or the hard. And within the range of the grid, 22 cars, we saw all three compounds being used with fuel in them towards the end of FP2. So from a Pirelli point of view, it's the middle range compound looks to be about spoton for Barcelona.

[00:01:28]So the first bit of news, McLaren Mercedes looking very strong, pretty near the factory team. George Russell had a very good day after a very poor Monaco of course helped possibly by Frederick Bestie being in Kimmy Anteneelli's car for FP1. FP1 in Barcelona was a real young driver session. Mercedes historically don't seem to give Vestie much of a run. So not not too much pace from his car.

[00:01:53]George able to focus on what he was doing and ended up quickest indeed in FP1. So not a bad way for him to start and just about as quick as Lando. I don't think either of them were particularly happy with their laps uh in FP2. Oscar Pia also doing a 154 despite quite a big moment coming out of turn 12 when he was getting the power on a little bit too soon from his wide entry.

[00:02:14]Classic Oscar. Um, so that that was the first thing. It's going to be a good race between McLaren Mercedes and the factory team. That is for sure. When Kimmy Antinelli got in the car, very business-like, very professional, out of the box, pretty quick. Not able to match George in in a one lap, put on the soft tire. Let's see how quickly he can go.

[00:02:33]But when they got on to fuel runs, it was quite interesting because initially Kimmy ran the soft, George the medium, and then they swapped over. And there was a quite a good cameo when at the beginning of his run when he was on the soft tire, George was on the medium.

[00:02:45]Kimmy moved over quite quickly to let George get in front and then put quite a lot of pressure on him. Sometimes George would go a little bit quicker, sometimes Kimmy would go a little bit quicker, sometimes the traffic would get involved until George ran wide coming out of turn 10. I wonder if that's a precursor of what we might be seeing on Sunday.

[00:03:02]Kimmy, meanwhile, absolutely spot on with everything he was doing. Looking like a driver who's not letting Monaco or Canada or anything before that get to his head at all. just looking very Alan Proslike in the way he got into the car today and just reeled off the lap times.

[00:03:17]Very few mistakes, just looked great in the car yet again as he had at Monte Carlo. So look for the battle there between the two. Ferrari Charlotte Clerk not convincingly good.

[00:03:29]He was P4 in FP1 when Dino Beanovic was in Lewis Hamilton's car. So that should have given him a little bit of an of an edge. And indeed he was quicker. Lewis looked a little bit lost when he got into the car in the afternoon. Said there was something wrong with the rear.

[00:03:44]They said, "Well, maybe it's just the wind." Lewis, classic thing in Barcelona, the crosswinds there coming out of three going into nine. Lewis not looking particularly comfortable there.

[00:03:54]Not bad with the fuel run though. So, we'll see what happens overnight with his confidence. And Charl with the big news that he's got the brake uh the new brake system on the car, the Lewis brakes, didn't seem to be talking about the brakes. didn't seem to be very happy with the car either, which kind of goes the way I was thinking that in reality it's not the brakes, it's probably something more than that. It's just actually probably lack of grip with Ferrari and we saw it today. And another point actually comparing the McLaren's even with the Merks and especially with the Ferrari McLaren able to use a lot more curb without destabilizing the car particularly the apex of turn seven which is the lefthander at the bottom of the hill able to use a lot of road there with the curb. McLaren just so soft over that. Well, soft looking anyway. I'm sure they're not that soft as they come out of that corner and other places as well. McLaren look to be a have a very very forgiving race car in terms of the downforce they've got, in terms of the ride heights they're running, in terms of the suspension stiffness they've got.

[00:04:52]McLaren always looks good around Barcelona these days. And so this year, it's also no surprise to see them going so well. Further down, Max Vstappen not happy with the Red Bull at all. Didn't really do a run. He did one lap on the soft tires and went straight back onto the hard tires to do a fuel run. He's done fuel runs in FP1 and FP2. It's as if it's almost as if I don't even want to look about what the car's like. We've got no fuel in it. Let's just let's just do our job on that because I don't even want to drive it like that. He said quite quite early out of the box at the beginning of the first session, the car just feels terrible left, right-handers, different on both. And at one point just said, I just don't know what I can do.

[00:05:31]which is obviously a slap in the face for all the Red Bull people at the moment because it looked as if they were on the rise from Miami then going into Canada.

[00:05:41]Not a bad race there. Monte Carlo obviously we never know we never saw how it would go in the race but very quick in qualifying. We never thought as I said in the live stream that Red Bull would be anything like as competitive around Barcelona but I have to say I didn't think they'd be this slow. Maybe it'll pick up. Maybe maybe they're running massive fuel all all day. We'll we'll see tomorrow. I hope so because at the moment doesn't look easy for Max Vstappen. He's basically a second off the pace at the moment on the soft tire.

[00:06:08]And put another way, he's only a tenth quicker than Arbin Lindblad, that's not in any way to to decry's performance today. But for a for Red Bull A team driver Maxappen to be only a tenth quicker than Lindblad in the Red Bull B team, there's obviously something seriously wrong there with uh with the A car. Let's hope they get it right.

[00:06:28]Gabriel Bortalto did very well. The Audi's look very good. Another car. It's interesting actually see Paul Aaron, quick driver, talented driver. He's driven a few uh he's had test deals with a number of Formula 1 teams now, but he's with Audi now. And it was interesting to see him jump into the car and be only fractionally slower than Forella. They were the two quickest of the rookie drivers or the young drivers in FP1. And and bearing in mind it was an Audi. I mean, excellent performance from Paul Aaron. He just jumped into Nico Hulkenber's car and went really well. Uh quicker actually than Gabriella Bortalto who had had some good runs on the soft tire. It was almost as if they were sort of wondering what was wrong.

[00:07:05]Do you want another run Gabby? Maybe you know no traffic or anything. And there's Paul Aaron going that quickly. So I think that just shows how good that that that Audi chassis is. Interesting point, isn't it? Uh but not not necessarily because we know how good it is. Nika Hulenberg very very good when he got into the car this afternoon as well.

[00:07:24]Isak Hajar there or thereabouts.3 slower than Max in what is obviously a very difficult car at the moment around Barcelona. Uh and then the usual suspects Oliver Bman not looking too badly uh perhaps he needs a result doesn't he this weekend. So it started reasonably well for him. Liam Lawson lost time in FP1 when the car ground to a halt uh at the pit lane entry and uh mention should be made of I guess for Luke Browning who was supposed to be out in the Williams didn't do a lap in the Williams so uh that wasn't good was it?

[00:07:54]I often say these these FP1 days for the young drivers are not really worth it because the teams how much attention do they really pay to it? They have to do it by the regulations but um yeah you know it's not good is it when he doesn't even do a lap. uh the two Aston Martin Hondas right at the back as well. So yeah, not getting any better for Fernando Alonzo in his home Grand Prix.

[00:08:16]Bear in mind that he's the sort of ambassador of Barcelona now. He's a Catalunian driver initially. Well, not initially, he is. Uh whereas Carlos Science has lent his name to the Madrid race and there's quite a lot of bad blood between those two races. Sad to see. Typical Formula 1, I suppose you could say, all to do with money.

[00:08:33]Barcelona resentful that Madrid came up with a lot more money to get their way onto the calendar and then took the Spanish Grand Prix title from them. Uh and so there's and so this weekend actually as we we we've got the Grand Prix in Barcelona and yet if you look through the inbox there's lots of emails coming from Madrid talking about a new sponsorship deal here and we're going to have a press day next week. I mean you would imagine that they would just respect one another and try to work together to build up Formula 1 in Spain, but no, that's not it's not happening at all. It's just so petty. It's pathetic.

[00:09:03]The other big news, of course, uh and a follow-up to the video I did last night about the F1 timing admitting that they had inaccuracies at Monte Carlo, which is unbelievable really that well, it's they're admitting it now this late, 5 days late, 4 days late, uh and that they occurred anyway on the on the timing loops, the speed loops in the pit lane.

[00:09:25]They admitted it. And also the revelation from the stewards that when they asked during the race because of the abnormal number of speeding penalties if there was any issue with the loops in the pit lane and they were told categorically there was no issue. So as I said in the video last night it's an absolute no-brainer that they should give P3 back to Pierre Gazley and that's indeed exactly what they've done. And actually during the during FP2 the email comes through official race results Monaco Grand Prix suddenly Pierre Gazley's up in third place. He's like a Jarus P4. Uh, and it's, you know, but it's a horrendously bad situation, particularly now that we know there was a problem with the speed loops in the pit lane. It's a particularly bad situation for all the drivers that did come in and served their 5-second penalty in the pit lane because once that's happened, you can't rebuild history. It's happened and there's no way that those guys can benefit at all.

[00:10:20]They didn't issue protests. They didn't uh so only only Alpine will benefit from this. But, you know, good luck to Alpine, Steve Nielson, who's done an excellent job there with his team of engineers, at least to show the problem there. One wonders, if they hadn't protested, would the FIA be coming out with a statement saying we had a problem with the speed loops in the pit lane?

[00:10:40]Would they have done that proactively? I very much doubt it. So, all credit to Alpine for bringing that out. But, you know what it means for the other teams now? It's just horrendous, isn't it? And you could say, well, don't serve the pit. Don't serve your penalty in the pit lane. Now, that's the the moral to that.

[00:10:54]But, as I understand the rules, you have to, and if you don't, you get another 5-second penalty, whereas Pier Gazzley fortuitously, probably because of the way the restarts and everything else, didn't serve them, and he was able to have that time added uh and got away with it. So, good luck to them. But bear in mind that once you've stopped and served your 5-second penalty in the pit lane, there is no way that can be undone.

[00:11:17]It's no surprise now that there are rumors, rumblings that teams like Mercedes and McLaren, well Mercedes, it's a difficult one obviously because Gimme won the race. Let's think about George Russell are potentially thinking of taking this to court on the basis that the whole Monaco Grand Prix should be nullified, taken out of the championship this year and not scoring points because now the official timekeepers have said there was a problem with the speeding loops.

[00:11:47]Penalties were issued. That can't be undone in the case of most drivers, Pier Gazzley aside. And you know, if you're George Russell, you'd think what was that all about? You know, I I I didn't deserve those penalties. I got penalties. I could have finished higher up and you know, Kimmy Anthony got a big jump on me there. How Mercedes will handle that particular one, I don't know. Bit like Lewis Hamilton Abu Dhabi 21. I should think they'll go a reasonable distance and then back away.

[00:12:13]But from McLaren's point of view with Oscar Pastry, you know, there's some real uh real traction there to be doing something about that. Um the that is the only then the reason they would do that is because it would be the only recourse. I think there's another recourse to be honest. I think that FOM should find themselves a massive amount of money. I don't know $10 million and that should be split between the teams that incurred the penalties from which they could get no uh no recourse once it was shown that the whole thing was in error. Of course, that will never happen. So, barring that, you know, the only other way is to say, well, maybe this race shouldn't count for points because it's it's an unheard of situation. It really is. And it's it's absolutely appalling that it took this long as well for it to be uncovered. And one final thought on that is Sha L Clerk. If Sha was unbelievably annoyed by the Ferrari strategy that knowing that Lewis had got to serve his penalty, they nonetheless brought him in when he they could have kept him out on hard tires and given him track position P2.

[00:13:20]If he was unbelievably annoyed by that and as a result went off, partly because he was angry, partly because, you know, the track was breaking up, how would Charlotte Kirk be feeling about this?

[00:13:32]Obviously, that penalty should not have been given to Lewis Hamilton and in the normal course of events, they both would have come in. Sh perhaps would have been much calmer and maybe wouldn't have gone off at rest.

[00:13:44]Wow. You know, you can take a lot of layers here. Okay, so that was Friday.

[00:13:48]Uh we'll be back with videos tomorrow.

[00:13:50]Uh when it when it when it'll start to heat up at Barcelona for sure and we go into qualifying tomorrow and then the Grand Prix of course on Sunday. I'll be doing videos both days. And don't forget that of course on Sunday I will be doing a live chat during the race as well for members only. So if you haven't joined, we'd love to have you on board. Big thanks to all those that support the show. Obviously to you, but also to Jetcraft to OEM exclusive to Track Ninja and of course to REC watches. Brilliant.

[00:14:16]Okay, see you tomorrow. Thanks for watching.