Ross Brawn and Jenson Button will be plotting another win in the Spanish Grand Prix
Today is Qualification for the Spanish Grand Prix (Barcelona) with tomorrow’s race and today’s qualification shown live on BBC1. Jenson Button has won 3 of the first four Grand Prix of this season and looks well positioned to improve his points tally tomorrow. The dramatic start to the season has seen McLaren and Ferrari drop down the pecking order in favour of new boys Brawn. Red Bull seem to go from strength to strength, and the exciting Toyota team continue to improve. There is nothing to suggest that the new order of things will be changed after yesterday’s practice sessions. However, new developments introduced in Spain are likely to define the order for much of the rest of the season and these same new developments make us defer our betting choices until after the Qualification session today.
It is notable that in first practice, Barrichello ran with the old car, whilst Button was first in the early practice running a car with a modified front wing, new aerodynamics and alterations to the double-decker diffuser. In the second session Barrichello was fourth with the modifications whilst Button was sixth with further alterations to the front wing. We can be certain that Brawn are on the pace for this race and we can expect a very strong Qualification session.
Red Bull have come closest to challenging Brawn this season and I expect that trend to continue in Barcelona. Red Bull are satisfied with the modifications they have made but still have not introduced the controversial double-decker diffuser and we can expect Red Bull to improve their pace when this modification takes place.The Red Bull team are unsurprisingly “bullish” about their chances and look the best choice to challenge Brawn yet again. It would be nice to see the popular Aussie Mark Webber do well in Barcelona, but Vettel seems to have the edge in races and we expect the aforementioned drivers to occupy the first four places on the grid after qualification. If one of the Red Bull drivers can get on the front row alongside a Brawn car then we could have a very exciting start to the race indeed!
Toyota do not expect to be as competitive as they were in Bahrain, where Jarno Trulli finished third, but are expecting a leap in performance for the next race in Monaco when they say there are more car upgrades to come.
Ferrari expect better things now that racing is back in Europe and Alonso will perform well in the Spanish GP on his home soil, but it is BMW Sauber and Wiliams-Toyotas that may produce some surprises in both the qualification sessions and the race itself.
We are not placing any significant bets other than the first four for the grid because it will be interesting to see just how close the Red Bulls are to the Brawn cars during qualification and what differences all of the car modifications make before making any race predictions.
