Looking back at Barcelona

By Matt Jones
May 18 2006

A double points finish in Spain for Honda Racing F1 gave fans something to cheer about, and RealHondaF1.com reader Matt Jones was cheering loudest. Here's his review of the Spanish Grand Prix.

With the drivers testing so much at the Catalunya circuit over the winter, racking up thousands of laps between them, it’s the track every F1 driver knows like the back of their hands. With a lot of sweeping corners at high speeds, aerodynamics play an extremely important part and should catch out any teams who aren’t quite up to scratch. It’s also a tough race for the drivers, as it’s a very high G circuit – it’s certain to prove a test for the teams and drivers.

The qualifying system is still working well to create very watchable mayhem. The first session went by without too many surprises, though David Coulthard did supply us with a spin that temporarily halted the first session.



The second session is increasingly throwing in some big names as casualties, with the mid field catching up with the likes of McLaren and Honda. Juan Pablo Montoya and both Williams’ cars were the big names to lose out here, the first time both Williams’ cars had failed to make the shoot out for pole. Disappointing for the team who have really gone backwards after showing promising race pace at Bahrain. It seems perhaps the major manufacturers are simply out developing Williams…

It was no surprise when Renault and Ferrari went on to dominate the front two rows of the grid; both teams are scampering away from McLaren and Honda. With McLaren suffering from a loss of top aerodynamic personnel it could turn out for a very disappointing year for the team and, realistically, could be the first season since 1997 the team fails to chalk up a race win.

Honda made it fifth and eight on the grid, with Jenson Button, complaining of masses of understeer, once again out qualified by a slowly improving Rubens Barrichello. Not an ideal start for Button, as overtaking at Spain is very rare indeed. Being behind the Toyota of Jarno Trulli was not ideal either; with the Italian being very much off form for the whole season it would be absolutely essential to get a good start.

On race day Button did what was needed and got an excellent start off the line, passing both Toyota’s. Amazingly Kimi Raikkonen went from ninth to fifth into turn one, squeezing in between the two Toyota’s and navigating around the Honda’s.

It was just as well Button did get past Trulli, as he held up Ralf Schumacher, losing him a lot of time. Eventually Ralf grew inpatient and tried a rather silly move down the inside of Trulli into turn one, locking his brakes and hitting Jarno. Trulli’s car was left intact, though Ralf’s slowly made his way back to the pits with a destroyed front wing, his race weekend ruined.

Not surprisingly, Trulli once again disappeared in the race, suffering from a complete lack of pace, and perhaps interest. There are increasing rumours that if Trulli fails to score in Monaco he could be replaced.

Unfortunately Jenson was not let off completely, as he too was held up, this time by Rubens Barrichello. This probably cost Button the chance to challenge Kimi.

As expected, the Ferraris and Renaults scampered away from the rest of the field, with Alonso firmly in control until the finish, becoming the first ever Spanish driver to win a Spanish Grand Prix, much to the delight of the masses of fans who showed up to support him. Whilst the last two races have been very much decided on strategy, today Renault were simply too quick for the Ferrari’s to really challenge.

Montoya seemed to be struggling with his McLaren, with a very big lock up early on and then spinning off. Amazingly marshals were sent onto the track to retrieve the McLaren with no safety car being deployed. The incident was one of the most blatant needs for a safety car I have ever seen and, with fatalities of marshals in recent years, obviously lessons have not been learnt.

Giancarlo Fisichella once again failed to live up to Fernando Alonso’s pace, though fourth is a solid result for the team and probably a relief to Fisichella to finally score some decent points.

Renault got back to their winning ways. After being out done on strategy at the last two races, they won in Spain purely on race pace. Surely Alonso will be looking at his package and then looking at the McLaren and wondering why he signed for them? It could prove a bad move for Alonso in terms of challenging for the championship next season.

McLaren were nowhere to be seen. Kimi’s pace was nothing special and his stunning start very much won him his fifth place finish. The McLaren is looking more and more lacklustre as the season goes on. If they are to win this season they need to find a lot of performance but, with a lot of the experienced personnel leaving the team, it is perhaps likely that there is not going to be a quick fix in regards to performance.

Ferrari were fast once again but perhaps the Michelin advantage at the track proved too much. I’m positive they will be back strong at Monaco, and the world drivers and constructors championship is still very much a two horse race. Massa has had three very solid race weekends on the bounce, with a fastest lap on Sunday.

Honda looked a lot better than in recent weeks. The car seems to be working well and we were genuinely quicker than the McLaren, which is excellent news. The unfortunate news is that Ferrari and Renault are light years ahead of us, with Rubens Barrichello being lapped and Jenson Button finishing almost one minute off the lead. It’s going to be a long time before race wins come to the team.

Rubens came home with points again, and his performance is improving which is great to see. Hopefully he can start putting pressure on Button so both drivers can get the best out of one another. Button was once again Mr Consistency, not putting a foot wrong all race.

Toyota will be very disappointed with both drivers; Ralf’s impatience ended with him almost taking his team-mate out while Trulli simply lacked any pace. With more and more speculation flying around about his future, this will not help his state of mind. If things continue Toyota will surely start to consider putting test driver Ricardo Zonta in the seat - Trulli’s failure to score a single point since Monza last year is simply not acceptable.

BMW-Sauber gave a solid display with Jacques Villeneuve racing hard from the back of the grid. Nick Heidfeld backed up his strong qualifying performance with another point for the team. BMW will be very pleased with the start they have made for the season with the car regularly in the low points positions.

Williams were nowhere to be seen in either qualifying or the race. Very disappointing, but perhaps to be expected without a major manufacturer backing them. It will be interesting to see if Williams can turn things round or whether the furious development of the top few teams will continue to push them further and further away from the points positions.

Red Bull Racing lurked about in the midfield, certainly not where David Coulthard would have wanted to spend his 200th Grand Prix. Unfortunately the car just is not working for either himself or Klien this season.

Super Aguri are getting closer and closer to MidlandF1 and, with the introduction of the new chassis at Magny-Cours, surely they will make a leap into the midfield to challenge the likes of Red Bull and maybe even Williams. The decision to put Frank Montagny in Yuji Ide’s seat seems to be the right one, with the news after Nurburgring that Yuji Ide’s Super Licence has been revoked by the FIA.

Toro Rosso’s didn’t threaten anyone outside the midfield, the threat of the V10 anticipated by the bigger teams being very much none existent. Perhaps they will be strong at Monaco where the low speed corners of the circuit will benefit the extra torque produced by the Cosworth unit.

Not a very eventful race at Spain. We’ve been deprived of some good overtaking for a few weeks now and we will have to wait a bit longer, as Monaco is the next race on the calendar.

With Honda serving its ban last year, the last time we competed at Monaco was in 2004 when Button chased down Trulli in the final laps of the race with one of the best drives of his career. Honda are hopeful of a competitive race at Monaco so hopefully we will have a good showing and a step up in performance to try and close the growing gap between us and the front two teams.

With one third of the season gone we have perhaps not achieved as much as we would have wanted but, compared to our disaster of a start to last season, we have a lot to be optimistic about. We are comfortably in the top four in the constructors championship and, with some back to back strong results from both drivers, could find ourselves very close to McLaren in the constructors championship come midseason.