2016 Spanish Grand Prix
The 2016 Spanish Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held on 15 May 2016 at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in Montmeló, Spain. The race was the fifth round of the 2016 FIA Formula One World Championship, and marked the forty-sixth running of the Spanish Grand Prix as a round of the Formula One World Championship. It was the twenty-sixth time that the race has been held at the circuit.
Nico Rosberg was the defending race winner and entered the round with a forty-three-point lead over teammate Lewis Hamilton in the Drivers' Championship. Their team, Mercedes, held an eighty-one point lead over Ferrari in the Constructors' Championship. Hamilton took pole position during qualifying, ahead of teammate Rosberg and Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo.
Max Verstappen won the race upon his début for his new team Red Bull, having swapped his Toro Rosso seat with Daniil Kvyat ahead of the event. At the age of 18 years and 228 days, Verstappen became the youngest ever winner and the youngest driver to score a podium finish of a Formula One race, breaking the previous records held by Sebastian Vettel. In the process he also became the first Dutchman to win a Grand Prix and the first Grand Prix winner born in the 1990s. Both Mercedes drivers retired from the race following a collision with each other on the first lap, thus marking the only race of the 2016 season without a Mercedes driver on the podium, the first Mercedes double retirement since the 2011 Australian Grand Prix and the first time the team had not scored a point since the 2012 United States Grand Prix.
Report
Background
and Max Verstappen traded places ahead of the race. Verstappen joined Red Bull Racing while Kvyat returned to Scuderia Toro Rosso. Red Bull's team principal Christian Horner explained the driver swap with Verstappen's talent, saying that the 18-year-old Dutchman and Daniel Ricciardo had the potential to become Formula One's best driver pairing. Furthermore, he stressed that Verstappen's move to Red Bull would tie him to the team for the foreseeable future. Daniil Kvyat meanwhile expressed surprise at the decision, saying during Thursday's press conference that he was "shocked" by his demotion, stressing that Red Bull did not give him a "real explanation".Following problems with his power unit in both the Chinese and Russian Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton received a redesigned MGU-H unit, in a bid to solve the troubles which hampered him earlier. However, Mercedes were unable to guarantee that the problem would not appear again.
With Spain being the first race in Western Europe, and a mid-season test coming up after the race, many teams introduced their first major car updates for the Grand Prix. Mercedes ran a new front wing with a "more pointy" nose during first free practice. Other changes were made to the engine cover and the rear wing. McLaren made more significant changes to their MP4-31, most notably on the front wing, which Sky Sports commentator Ted Kravitz called the "most intricate front wing I've ever seen". Force India updated their VJM09 to improve airflow. According to the team, they were looking for improved driveability rather than faster lap times. Renault introduced a new chassis for Jolyon Palmer. More significantly, the French manufacturer debuted a new version of their power unit for both their works team and Red Bull at the two-day test following the race. All other teams except for Sauber also made changes to their cars, with the Swiss team continuing their financial struggles. They also announced that they would be forced to miss the mid-season test, being unable to field a development driver, with regulations demanding that two out of four test days be driven by young driver talents.
Both Sauber and Haas were allowed to use the updated version of Ferrari's 2016 power unit, which the works team had already used in Russia two weeks earlier.
Going into the weekend, Nico Rosberg led the Drivers' Championship, having taken the maximum number of 100 points from the first four races. Lewis Hamilton followed in second with 57 points, while Kimi Räikkönen was third with 43 points. Daniel Ricciardo followed in fourth, ahead of Sebastian Vettel. In the Constructors' standings, Mercedes was first with 157 points, 81 points clear of second-placed Ferrari. Behind them, Red Bull led fourth-placed Williams by just six points.
Sole tyre supplier Pirelli brought the hard, medium and soft tyres to the event, the first time this season to feature the orange hard tyres. As per the regulations of the 2016 season, every driver had to set aside one set each of the two hardest compounds for the race and one set of the soft tyres for Q3. The drivers had freedom of what other compounds they chose for the remaining ten out of thirteen sets.
Free practice
Per the regulations for the season, two 90-minute practice sessions were held on Friday and another 60-minute session was held before qualifying on Saturday. The Ferrari drivers, Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Räikkönen, set the pace in the first session, both on the soft tyre compound. The Mercedes drivers Rosberg and Hamilton followed, albeit on the medium compound, recording more timed laps than their rivals. Both Red Bull cars followed in fifth and sixth, with Daniel Ricciardo faster than new teammate Max Verstappen. Valtteri Bottas was seventh for Williams, two places ahead of teammate Felipe Massa, who at one point spun out at turn five. Upon his return to Toro Rosso, Daniil Kvyat was unable to match the pace of his teammate Carlos Sainz Jr., ending up half a second behind him. Esteban Ocon made his first free practice appearance of the season for Renault, replacing Jolyon Palmer, but was unable to set a timed lap. He suffered a tyre failure, caused by debris on the track. Force India's Sergio Pérez managed only nine laps as he spent much of the session in the pit lane after smoke emerged from the rear of his car.Mercedes topped the time sheets in the second session, now switching to the soft compound tyres as well, with Nico Rosberg two and a half-tenths of a second clear of Kimi Räikkönen, while Lewis Hamilton was third fastest, more than seven-tenths off Rosberg's time. Räikkönen's running was interrupted for a while when he was called back into the pitlane to investigate a fuel system problem, but was able to get back out. Fernando Alonso was seventh fastest for McLaren, but needed a replacement of his car's plank after running wide over artificial grass surrounding the track. His teammate, Jenson Button, also experienced problems, having to stop at the end of the pitlane early in the session with an electrical issue. Renault's problem from the first session continued: Jolyon Palmer, back in his car in place of Ocon, suffered a tyre failure on the start-finish straight, bringing out red flags in the process. Renault and tyre supplier Pirelli were left puzzled over the failure, as in this incident, no sign of a cut from debris was found.
Nico Rosberg was again fastest in the third practice session on Saturday morning, setting a time of 1:23.078 on his first timed run, a time that stood until the end of the session. Hamilton was second, 0.126 seconds off, followed by Sebastian Vettel just two-hundredths of a second behind him. In fourth place, Max Verstappen was faster than teammate Ricciardo for the first time, who finished fifth, ahead of Räikkönen. Upon beginning his preparation laps for qualifying, Rosberg had to come back into the garage, as a sensor on his car was malfunctioning. The team was capable of repairing the damage and he went back out for the final minutes of practice. Sergio Pérez was satisfied with the eighth fastest time, saying that the car had improved "everywhere" following the updates it had received.
Qualifying
Qualifying consisted of three parts, 18, 15 and 12 minutes in length respectively, with six drivers eliminated from competing after each of the first two sessions. In the first part of qualifying, Nico Rosberg set a time of 1:23.002, the fastest of the weekend up to that point, two-tenths of a second ahead of teammate Hamilton. Manor and Sauber occupied the back rows of the grid. Felipe Massa's first lap was seven-tenths of a second slower than the one from his teammate Bottas and as he was unable to set another timed lap, he became the surprise elimination in Q1, behind Jolyon Palmer, who was dropped into 17th place by a late improvement from Jenson Button.In Q2, it was Hamilton who came out on top, exactly six-tenths of a second ahead of Rosberg. Verstappen was third fastest, ahead of Ricciardo in fifth. Kimi Räikkönen had to abandon his first fast lap after running wide in turn four, but later set a time good enough for fourth. Meanwhile, Sebastian Vettel recorded just one timed lap, saving a set of tyres and was sixth. On his return to Toro Rosso, Kvyat was eliminated in 13th place, while teammate Sainz went through to Q3. Sergio Pérez advanced as well, demoting his teammate Hülkenberg into elimination in the process, who would line up eleventh on the grid. Joining him on the sidelines for Q3 were Jenson Button in twelfth, with Romain Grosjean, Kevin Magnussen and Esteban Gutiérrez lining up behind Kvyat.
Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg were the first out in Q3. Hamilton's early sector times put him on course to a new fastest lap of the weekend, but a brake lockup at turn ten ruined his lap and tyres. Nico Rosberg made no such mistake and claimed provisional pole position. As the two Ferrari drivers struggled to find pace, Max Verstappen claimed second place for the time being, before the drivers went out for their second laps. Lewis Hamilton's second flying lap bested Rosberg's time by almost three-tenths of a second, and saw him take the fifty-second pole of his career. The two Red Bull cars of Ricciardo and Verstappen followed, with Räikkönen and Vettel for Ferrari in fifth and sixth respectively, both more than a second behind Hamilton. Valtteri Bottas was best of the rest ahead of Sainz, Pérez and Alonso. It was the first appearance in Q3 for McLaren since they resumed their association with Honda in.