F1 Spanish GP Live Commentary and Updates – FP1 & FP2
Friday's action from the 10th round of the 2024 Formula 1 season.
F1 returns to Barcelona for the 34th race around the familiar Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
The grand prix weekend marks the start of a slog for F1 personnel, with five events scheduled to take place across a six-week period.
After Max Verstappen and Red Bull returned to winning ways last time out in Canada, can McLaren, Ferrari or Mercedes put pressure on the reigning champions?
FP1 starts at 12:30pm BST (13:30pm local time) followed by FP2 at 4:00pm BST (5:00pm local time).
Live Standings
Summary
Live Text
Russell is out on the mediums and pushing on with a fast lap. More and more teams switching to the yellow-sidewalled tyres for this stage of the session as we hit the halfway point.
Bottas has an issue on his Sauber - the DRS flap is fluttering wildly when open down the straights... it isn't meant to do that!
Just past the third-way mark of the session and most cars are back in the pits for some changes ahead of the next runs.
Norris complains of "pretty poor grip" after dipping two wheels in the gravel on the exit of the penultimate corner.
A reminder that since last year, the layout has returned to the higher-speed end of the lap rather than the slow, cumbersome chicane.
A slightly peculiar sight in the garage as an RB mechanic has his arm down the air intake above Tsunoda's head. A power related issue?
Perez: "Is there anything wrong with the throttle pedal that we are understeering too much?"
"We will have a talk in the garage."
There's a new hospitality bridge/tower crossing the circuit on the run to Turn 10.
Whoever green-lit that project clearly didn't think about the garish optics from the traditional camera spot far off into the runoff.
And Perez also has a three-place grid penalty hanging over him for his drive back to the pits whilst heavily damaged in Canada. It won't be an easy comeback weekend for him...
Perez is currently a second off Verstappen's best effort. It's a common theme that the gap between the two is wide at the beginning of the weekend but early in the season, the Mexican had been closing that margin.
The last two weekends, however, have been a different story.
Bearman has attacked the outside kerb at Turn 9 and gave the floor of the Haas a big whack.
The good news is that nothing came flying from the car in the aftermath.
The power issue has clearly been fixed because Sainz has gone within half-a-tenth of Russell's time, which has in turn been usurped by Verstappen.
Sainz: "No power, no power."
The answer: "Multi-function strat, position one, and all will be fine."
Not ideal for a team that lost a car through an engine issue last time out.
The rake has come off Norris' McLaren in the garage and, after a small change to the front wing with a Gurney strip added, flow-vis is applied to the rear of the car.
Russell now jumps to the top and is the first into the 1m15s - the track will continue to evolve over the next 51 minutes.
Only the two Haas drovers and Zhou are on mediums at this stage, with every other driver running the hards.
Verstappen goes fastest by six-tenths straight out of the box.
Lap times at this stage are completely irrelevant but, for what it's worth, Tsunoda has gone fastest ahead of Russell and Sainz.
There's no Hulkenberg for Haas in this session, but there is Bearman.
The F2 driver is in for an FP1 session as rumours persist over a potential seat at the team for next season.
A lot of flow-vis being applied to the rear of Leclerc's Ferrari in the garage.
Zhou has red flow-vis on his front-left suspension, while the McLaren is running a big aero rake at the back.
The Spanish GP weekend is underway!
Valtteri Bottas leads the field out, followed by Fernando Alonso.
With upgrades added, teams will be eager to get out on track and that's why there's already a small queue at the end of the pits.
Whilst Red Bull and McLaren have consistently been at the top of the pile this term, Ferrari and Mercedes have questions to answer this weekend - for very different reasons.
The Brackley-based outfit was on the up in Canada, while Ferrari could muster only a double DNF.
The track is dry for the first session of the weekend, though there is weather around for later in the event.
The big question heading into the weekend is whether Red Bull will return to its dominance of the last 18 months as F1 returns to a more traditional circuit.
Most teams will be hoping that is not the case!
But Ferrari has also been at it...
The Spanish GP is traditionally a landing spot for teams to add upgrades and Red Bull certainly hasn't skimped out!
But first, the biggest story of the day has been Alpine's hiring of Flavio Briatore as an executive advisor.
It's a controversial move, given his role in the 2008 'crashgate' scandal.
Hello and welcome to coverage of the Spanish Grand Prix weekend.
There have been a number of upgrades added by teams and we will run through those in the build-up to FP1.
By: Autosport Staff
