Friday in Spain summed up: Sandbagging Red Bulls or Mercedes back at the top?

In Portugal, many drivers, including Max Verstappen, struggled with the lack of grip on the new asphalt. In combination with Pirelli's hard compounds, grip was hard to find and Verstappen made no secret of his anticipation for the next race on a 'normal' track. We didn't have to wait long for that, as the Spanish Grand Prix weekend is already in full swing.

Is Mercedes back at the top?

Mercedes have never really been away from the top of course, but Red Bull Racing seemed to have closed the gap, and in certain circumstances they even seemed faster. On the first training day in Spain Mercedes looked strong again. During the first free practice session, this was immediately apparent, although it was Sebastian Vettel who topped the timesheet midway through the session. Valtteri Bottas ended the session as the fastest, followed by Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton. However, the differences were extremely small: the entire top ten were within a second of each other.

Will Red Bull and Honda keep up the pace?

Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez were mainly busy with the long runs on the hardest compound during the first half of the session, and did not set particularly fast times during that part of the session. Because of a red flag, caused by the Alfa Romeo that Robert Kubica parked in the gravel pit, it seemed to get tense whether those fast lap times would still come. In the end they did, and Verstappen ended the first free practice session in second place. Perez had to do it with ninth place.

Different picture during VT2

The second free practice gave a completely different picture. Mercedes ended the session as the fastest, with Hamilton in first and Bottas in second. Charles Leclerc closed the top three. Verstappen finished ninth with a gap of 0.615 seconds to Hamilton, followed immediately by Perez in tenth.

The second session may have been a bit of a disappointment: Verstappen made a mistake while he was setting a fast lap. Because of this he was unable to improve his time. There was also no Honda in the top ten of the speed trap. This could mean that Red Bull Racing and AlphaTauri have scaled back their engines, and that we will only see their real pace on Saturday.