What we learned from Friday practice at F1's 2023 Spanish GP
Formula 1 cars have logged countless testing laps around Barcelona over the years, but Friday practice was the first time they had sampled the circuit without the unpopular final chicane since 2006.
Max Verstappen and Red Bull Racing did as they have for the rest of Formula 1 2023 so far and dominated the opening day of practice at Barcelona, quickest by a big margin over long runs and topping the times overall.
The field appears very close behind, however, and there is hope – quite a bit from Red Bull’s rivals and surely for neutral observers too – that forecast wet weather could shake-up the action over the rest of the weekend.
There was also the return of a major talking point from 2022, plus analysis on major upgrade packages at several squads.
Here’s everything we learned from Friday practice at the 2023 Spanish Grand Prix.
The story of the day
Friday’s F1 running got underway in glowing warmth and blue skies in the early afternoon, with Verstappen, rather familiarly, crushing his opposition on his way to topping FP1 – by a massive 0.768s over team-mate Sergio Perez. Esteban Ocon and Nyck de Vries finished third and fourth in the opening session, which was treated as a glorified test run by many squads.
Alonso, sixth in FP1, initially took to the track with two front-end-mounted aero rakes on his Aston Martin, which were being used to measure the airflow coming off the front wheels. Lance Stroll had small cameras pointed at his front tyres and sitting on his front floor edge, as Aston gathered in the data on its front wing, nose and rear wing upgrades.
Ferrari had attracted the most attention ahead of FP1 with its surprise sidepod updates here, but when it came to the early track action these were only fitted to home hero Carlos Sainz’s SF-23. The Italian team was splitting its car arrangement to get back-to-back measurements of the impact of the changes.
Ferrari is sporting revised sidepods in Spain
Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images
Perhaps the most notable part of FP1, which also featured the teams sampling the prototype Pirellis coming for full use from the British GP and were also available for FP2, was several drivers reporting a return of porpoising through Barcelona’s final corner.
This has gone back to being a high-speed turn and Verstappen, Perez and McLaren’s Lando Norris complained about their machines bottoming out in FP1, with George Russell doing likewise at the start of FP2.
In that second session, Ferrari upended the usual norms by heading out straight away on the soft tyres – Leclerc’s machine now redressed in the new sidepods too. Sainz led the way for the Scuderia, initially by a whopping 0.601s, before his team-mate closed in and then forged ahead when they completed the typical mid-FP2 qualifying simulation runs.
It's likely Hamilton will switch to the higher downforce Mercedes wing package come the sessions that matter here as the added downforce will better help preserve tyre life
Before this, Verstappen had gone quicker than both Ferraris using the mediums and when he came to run the softs halfway through FP2 he set a session-best 1m13.907s. This was eventually followed by Alonso, while Nico Hulkenberg produced a surprise with third for Haas, 0.270s off the pace, as the Ferrari pair were shuffled down to sixth and seventh by the end of the single lap work.
Mercedes had a quiet second session, other than Russell going off in the Turn 10 gravel early-on when he was unsettled by coming across Oscar Piastri going slowly on the racing line at the long left-hand Turn 10 hairpin. Russell finished eighth with Hamilton 11th in FP2 – but the seven-time world champion did at least finish the day with the quickest time in the track’s opening sector.
The difference between the Mercedes drivers came down to wing choices – with Hamilton running a slimmer rear wing and overall downforce package compared to Russell. This boosted him on the straights but cost so much in the corners Hamilton was having to lift in the long Turn 3 right and was losing time in Turn 10, as well as through the apexes of the final corners.
It's likely Hamilton will switch to the higher downforce Mercedes wing package come the sessions that matter here as the added downforce will better help preserve tyre life, again set to be the critical factor for the race outcome on Sunday.