Formula 1 is full of complex lingo and circuit-specific narratives that can confuse and baffle the occasional viewer or new fan. Why is the Hungarian Grand Prix known for its quali bias? What makes the Singapore Grand Prix the most physically challenging race? And why do teams take different rear wings for the Monaco Grand Prix?

With 23 circuits, there can be a lot to take in, so in partnership with Google Chrome, we’ve organised for you to join us in Lando and Oscar’s engineering briefings, where we’ll walk you through this weekend’s key trackside topics so that you can enjoy the Spanish Grand Prix to its fullest.

As a regular testing location in the world of Formula 1, the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya is normally a circuit that the paddock knows like the back of their hand, but it looks a little different this year, with changes made to the final chicane. And in F1, even the smallest of changes can make a big difference, especially for the engineers of the paddock.

We’ve asked Tom Stallard to lead this weekend’s engineering briefing, where he’ll explain what effect we can expect these changes to have on the weekend and how they’ll be examining them, with lap times, tyre wear and aerodynamics all expected to change.

It’s time to begin. Grab a coffee and follow us through the glass doors and into the Paddock Performance Centre. Take notes if you need them, but please keep them to yourself.

Engineer: Tom Stallard
Event: Spanish Grand Prix
Circuit: Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya 

Background

90 per cent of the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya is a circuit that we know very well – it’s the other 10 per cent that has everyone interested this weekend! It’s very similar to the track that F1 used to race on – with a few tweaks – and the same as the one MotoGP have used. Turn 13 changes from a tight right-hander into a flat-out right-hander, which bypasses the chicane and feeds into the final corner – now Turn 14.

That’s going to be pretty quick – a little quicker even than Turn 9. It’ll certainly be a lift in the race, probably a small lift for everyone in qualifying too. The corner itself hasn’t changed, the line will be the same as it was – but you’re entering a lot faster and exiting perhaps 20km/h quicker.

In many respects it’s the opposite of how the corner used to work: coming out of the chicane, the cars would have been entering the corner slow and picking up speed all the way through. Now, they’ll be entering very fast and dropping speed. There’s a lot to study.

The impact of those changes

In the race, it’ll change the track quite a lot. It’s one extra, really big high-speed corner, particularly for the front-left. The graining risk moves to the front axle and degradation is much more of a risk on the front-left. And there’s much less low-speed to worry about. With the old low-speed Turn 14 - Turn 15 chicane removed, and Turn 10 reprofiled to be much quicker a couple of years ago, what we have now is mostly quick. We’ll be learning new things about how the tyres respond to that all the way through practice.

What’s unusual about the track now is that it takes what was already a quite biased circuit with a lot of fast right-handers, and makes it even more asymmetrical by adding the extra fast rights. There’s potential to help with this by making some unusual set-up choices, such as standing-up the camber on the front-right – and once you go down this road there’s quite a few wacky things that you might do! We’ve spent the last few days looking at a few of them and have a few unusual tests in the programme – things that we wouldn’t try elsewhere.

Other than that, and with Turn 5 now the only classic low-speed corner, we’ll be aiming for high roll-stiffness – but Turn 5 will be tricky: there’s a lot of track-warp there, and a very stiff car will be difficult. So, we have to see what the car can cope with.

Degradation and the effect on pit-stops

Last year’s race was a three-stopper, because Barcelona really takes it out of the tyres, and this year we’re going slightly softer with the tyre allocation. Last year’s C1 is now the C0, and here we have the new C1, which is a half-step, together with the C2 and C3 from last year. We raced these tyres in Bahrain and we’d expect all three compounds to be in the frame as race tyres.

One thing to investigate is what impact the new corner has on single-lap pace. It used to be the case that, on hot days, or with very soft tyres, you needed to be careful at the start of the lap, so you had good tyres for the final chicane where a lot of time could be lost. It remains to be seen what impact the new layout has on how we attack the rest of the lap – but it probably will have an impact. It was mainly the rears you were saving for the traction demands of the chicane, and that demand no-longer exists. The high-speed corners are likely to be front-limited. Investigating this will be a priority – though the best way to investigate it in practice will be to go as fast as you can and see what happens!

The other thing to note about the tyres is that we’re getting a new tyre construction from Silverstone onwards. It’s intended to be more durable but otherwise identical – and we get to test it here. Pirelli are giving us two extra sets of experimental C1s to be used on Friday, which means we can use six sets of slicks on Friday rather than the usual four.

Aerodynamics

It’s not all tyres, of course, and we’ll start the FP1 programme with aero rakes fitted to both cars. It’s a good circuit to choose for that, as both drivers know the circuit very well, including the new layout that we did in February with the MCL35M under the TPC rules. We don’t lose much by having the drivers be a little more careful of the kerbs for the first run of FP1.

In terms of aerodynamic configuration, what we have here is very similar to what we had in Monaco. The demands of the circuit are a little bit different: you might want to take a little bit of downforce off for qualifying – but have it back for the race. Of course, you’re not allowed to do that! So, there might be a little bit of a trade-off to study.

The new aerodynamic regulations brought in last year have affected different circuits in different ways. Here, they’ve definitely made overtaking easier because you can follow closer through the corners. It definitely makes you think a little bit more about your Sunday pace, because you can no-longer go into the weekend planning to qualify well and then hold everyone up in the race. Although we’ve been to Barcelona many, many times, it’s not the same place it used to be – so there’s plenty for us to learn.

Briefing complete. Time for Lando and Oscar to head out onto the track so we can collect some data and put our hard work to the test.