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This article first appeared in GP Racing magazine.
Among the least insightful 'hot takes' barked out by the opinionati in the wake of a Spanish Grand Prix which was, on the face of it, less than thrilling, was the claim that Barcelona's status as F1's default testing venue militates against good racing there. Some voices went so far as to suggest that F1 should abandon world championship venues for its pre-season routine, testing only at circuits that don't feature on the calendar.
All of this is predicated on several assumptions, chief of which is the trope that nobody can find an edge at the Circuit de Catalunya because the teams know it so well, and have vaults full of data covering every possible scenario. If this were so, though, why is it that ho-hum races occured here before it became F1's winter go-to?
It also assumes all races there are processional - something which is occasionally the case but not uniformly. If you look beyond the business of who actually won, there were plenty of intriguing battles and daring on-track racing going on down the field - provided you were paying attention (and the TV director hadn't snoozed into automatic pilot).
