Green light in a great show in Barcelona

Last Sunday's Spanish Grand Prix was very interesting, closely contested and pretty spectacular. Maybe it was more one for the connoisseurs, who appreciate strategic duels and assessing the different performance levels of the cars, rather than for those who rate a race on how many overtaking moves there were. Even this latter group would have been entertained in the closing stages when a Safety Car triggered a series of wheel to wheel battles. These featured Max Verstappen, first with Charles Leclerc and then again with George Russell, both of them well used to toughing it out with the Dutchman. Out in front, the papaya coloured rocket ship just shot off into the distance, but behind the battle for third, there were two other outstanding performances on the Catalan stage, both of them tinged with green.

Let's follow diplomatic protocol and start with the Barcelona race's newly appointed ambassador and home grown here, Fernando Alonso. He's a two time F1 world champion, twice winner of the Le Mans 24 Hours and a WEC world champion to boot. He holds the record for the most number of F1 race starts on 413 and, at almost 44 years of age, he's still here, fighting in the midfield, up against kids who are young enough to be his children. He still dreams of returning to the top step of the podium at least once, to add to his 32 wins to date, the last one secured right here in Barcelona 12 years ago, when he was under the illusion that his time at Ferrari might deliver a third world title. Next year, he will achieve another long held wish, that after three years with Aston Martin, he will drive one of their cars designed by Adrian Newey. Yesterday at least, he finally got his name on this year's scoreboard. When the Safety Car came out, he was 13th, but in the space of the last six laps, he made it to tenth in the points. When the race was over, he was promoted to ninth after Verstappen was given a time penalty. Ninth place, the same result as in the final race of 2024 in Abu Dhabi, the last time he scored. The same Abu Dhabi that was the scene of heartbreak for the Spaniard many years earlier. 

The other folk dressed in green who had something to smile about live at the far end of the paddock, an area not often visited by the VIPs who flock to the Grands Prix these days. It also came courtesy of another driver who is not exactly in the first flush of youth. The last team in the paddock pecking order is Sauber, which this year is there in the role of a chrysalis which will morph into the Audi butterfly as from next year. They are where they are because they finished last in 2024 and although there was a glimmer of hope in the opening round in Melbourne when Nico Hulkenberg finished seventh in the wet, it seemed the 37 year old German and his team would face a not dissimilar scenario this year. But yesterday, they picked up their best result since Imola in 2022 (Valtteri Bottas finished fifth) when the team was known as Alfa Romeo, even if, scratch the paint and you would find the heart of the team founded by Peter Sauber. Sauber is now managed by Audi, with at its helm, an unusual couple in the shape of Mattia Binotto and Jonathan Wheatley, up until 2022 deadly rivals at Ferrari and Red Bull respectively. They brought an update package to Barcelona that seemed to work well, given that rookie Gabriel Bortoleto had his best qualifying of the season, 12th fastest, while the veteran German was able to exceed his Melbourne showing. Hulkenberg was also a beneficiary of the Safety Car when it came to securing points, but even before it appeared he was hot on the heels of the top ten.

Paradoxically, what helped him was the fact he was knocked out in Q1 and so had an extra set of new Soft tyres which he put to good effect, making up two places, passing Isack Hadjar in the Racing Bulls and then Lewis Hamilton in the Ferrari, later making up a further place because of the aforementioned penalty for Verstappen. Overtaking a multiple world champion in a Ferrari was to say the least, significant: same engine, same tyre compound, even if Lewis had put more laps on his Softs, still it was a Ferrari. As always, Nico was honest enough to admit his advantage. “Overtaking a Ferrari is unusual. Lewis was on used Softs, while we had new ones which shows how important the tyres are. Lewis was sliding a lot and I had new tyres and, to be honest, that made the difference.” That takes nothing away from the Sauber driver, who had not finished so high up the order since the 2019 Italian Grand Prix, when he was driving for Renault. It was a nice reward for a driver who, so far, has not had the results he deserves, even if outside of F1, he won the 2015 Le Mans 24 Hours with Porsche. It must be a small satisfaction at least for Mattia Binotto, the Head of the Audi F1 Project, to see a Sauber pass a Ferrari on the straight, and one driven by none other than Lewis Hamilton.