The Formula One teams are off to the first round of the European season at this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix, held at the Barcelona Circuit, a favoured venue for the ten teams during pre-season testing.
Spain has been a Formula 1 staple for almost as long as the world championship itself, hosting its first race back in 1951 and it has kicked off the European leg of the season since 1993.
The circuit has an eclectic mix of slow, medium and high-speed corners, with just three of the circuit's 16 turns taken at less than 100km/h (62mph), the result of which is an average speed of 200km/h (124mph)
For McLaren driver Fernando Alonso, this weekend's event is the last one he will contest before making his Indy 500 debut at the end of the month. It is also his home race and will definitely be able to count on a mass of support from his legion of fans in the grandstands.
“I'm really excited about returning to Barcelona for the Spanish Grand Prix. It's my home race, I've had some great times there, and the atmosphere is always crazy. We spend a lot of time there in pre-season testing, but there's nothing quite like the emotion of racing there in front of your home fans. It's a very special feeling,” he said.
However, while he would love to do well in front of his home crowd, Fernando knows that the weekend coming won't be an easy one…
“After a run of difficult races for us, I'm not sure what we can expect from this weekend. We're expecting some various new parts – which we bring to every race – but we can't really focus too much on performance until we have solved our reliability issues. That's always our focus,” he explained.
Despite the uncertainly however, Alonso knows that everyo9ne in the team is doing all they can to extract the maximum out of the current package…
“I know the team is working extremely hard to get to the bottom of our recent problems, and I am hopeful we can have a smooth race and a weekend with very few issues,” he said. “For me, qualifying has been an exciting session in the past few races and I hope we can repeat that in Barcelona, but the most important thing will be to maximise whatever grid slot we achieve on Saturday, on race day.”
