Spanish GP predictions: Norris to exact revenge, Sainz home podium and Alpine double points
McLaren’s Lando Norris.
After a thrilling qualifying session at the 2024 Formula 1 Spanish Grand Prix, the race promises to be just as exciting, if not more so.
With a chance of rain in the Barcelona sky, a wide strategic variety and temperatures that may also encourage high degradation, everything is in place for a spectacular Sunday of racing.
Lando Norris to take revenge after Canada defeat
We at PlanetF1.com have predicted the top 10 positions for the 2024 Spanish GP. And we encourage you, our readers, to make your own predictions for Sunday’s race as well.
Of course, to avoid more speculation than necessary, these predictions are based on race pace performance from Friday’s long runs and having a classic dry race scenario and do not take into account other factors such as accidents, safety cars or red flags.
10. Esteban Ocon
After a very positive weekend so far, Alpine has the opportunity to take another shot at P7 in the Constructors Championship and overtake Haas. The Flavio Briatore ‘effect’ has been felt immediately and with a better performance than the midfield teams and Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin, the French driver is in a good position to score a vital point for Alpine.
9. Pierre Gasly
With Ocon’s non-continuation with the team confirmed for 2025 and starting ahead of his teammate on the grid, it is clear that Gasly will have the most favourable strategy to maximise the team’s chances.
In this situation, it is difficult to imagine that Alpine can keep up with the pace of Mercedes and Ferrari. Moreover, behind the two French drivers, Oscar Piastri and Sergio Perez will eventually overtake them. It should be a calm race for the Enstone based-team which is in a very positive momentum looking forward rather than behind.
8. Sergio Perez
The Mexican driver is still not finding his best form. It is true that the RB20 is not the dominating car it used to be, but this is not a valid excuse to argue his bad performance. A poor performance that he is compensating by performing support driver duties and helping Max Verstappen as much as he can, as he did in the Dutchman’s last Q3 attempt by providing him with a tow.
Perez starts from P11 after a three-place grid penalty he carries over from Canada. Obviously, Ferrari and Mercedes are far away from his best hopes, on a circuit where it is difficult to overtake on track and, he also has to beat Oscar Piastri. Honestly, this is the best result he is aiming for on Sunday and it is not too high a demand. He only has to overtake Fernando Alonso and both Alpine drivers to achieve it.
7. Oscar Piastri
A very difficult weekend for the Australian so far. While Lando Norris seems comfortable with the MCL38, Piastri has not found the sweet spot of his car and clear proof of this was his last attempt in Q3 in which he went long at the exit of Turn 12. Lack of grip and lack of top speed made him finish P10 with no time set, ending his hopes for a podium fight on Sunday.
Piastri will start P9 thanks to Perez’s penalty and his big mission is to get closer to Ferrari. To do so, he will first have to catch the Alpines, who have been quite competitive in Barcelona. It doesn’t seem to be as easy a task as it sounds unless he can make a great start that allows him to be behind Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc right away.
6. George Russell
Mercedes’ long run pace, or at least the one we saw in Friday’s data analysis, doesn’t make us think that they are the favourites in the fight for the podium in their particular battle against Ferrari. After a poor race in Canada despite a podium finish, this time Russell was outperformed by Lewis Hamilton in qualifying.
This means that in the event of a direct fight with Ferrari for track position and strategy, Hamilton should in theory benefit from being ahead of George. Despite not having shown the same pace as Ferrari and McLaren in the long runs, we think the fight between the Italians and the Brackley team could be very close.
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5. Charles Leclerc
Despite finishing ahead of his team-mate in qualifying by just 5 thousandths of a second, Carlos Sainz has been ahead of the Monegasque all weekend. In what is expected to be a tight fight against Mercedes, we place Leclerc P5 although we think Ferrari’s pace should be better than Mercedes’ and we could have even placed him P4 or P3.
The Spanish GP is not one that Leclerc is particularly successful at. In his six appearances, five of them with Ferrari, the Ferrari driver has an average finishing position of 7.5. In 2022 he achieved pole and had to retire due to a turbo failure and his best result is a P4 achieved in 2021.
4. Lewis Hamilton
After a difficult start to the season and a difficult qualifying in Canada, Lewis seems to be getting more and more at ease in the W15. The seven-time World Champion finished P2 here last season and will start from P3 this Sunday after a very positive weekend so far.
As mentioned, if he is ahead of George in the early stages of the race, he should have the best strategy in the fight with Ferrari. Being ahead of Leclerc will be no easy task, but Lewis seems to have found the way forward of late and Spain is the perfect stage to confirm the positive feeling both in the car and behind the wheel.
3. Carlos Sainz
It’s Sainz’s last race wearing the red Ferrari kit at home. We think both the team and Leclerc are keen to help the Spaniard have a good farewell in Barcelona before announcing his future team in the upcoming days. It would be very unfair to deprive Sainz of something he is particularly looking forward to when he has always been willing to help out when needed.
The pace in Friday’s long runs was promising, at least better than Mercedes and on a par with McLaren and Red Bull. There is every reason to believe that Ferrari can outperform the Silver Arrows in the race. The differences in qualifying were minimal and the Italian team’s set-up was more focused on Sunday. In addition, the SF-24 is noted for its good tyre management.
2. Max Verstappen
We could have placed Max as the winner in this prediction as well. However, given the way the weekend unfolded, we think McLaren has more than Red Bull. The Dutchman struggled more with the set-up and it wasn’t until FP3 that he was 100% comfortable with the car. Even so, the long run pace on Friday was positive, although not as good as first predicted before arriving in Barcelona.
Against this backdrop, Red Bull will have to play its best cards in the race. With a higher top speed and the possibility of being inside DRS in the first three laps, this would put them in a very advantageous position. McLaren must avoid this at all costs. Another option they can consider is to start the race with a harder compound than Norris and play the overcut if the simulations tell them that they will not be able to catch Norris before the first pitstop. In short, there are multiple scenarios where Verstappen could be the winner.
1. Lando Norris
Revenge for McLaren and Lando Norris after having the Canadian win in their hand? We think so. The gap to Red Bull on long runs is minimal and the Woking-based team seems to have opted for a more downforce-friendly set-up to look after the tyres in the race. We may be in for a similar scenario to Imola where McLaren initially struggled more on the medium, but then found outrageously superior pace in the closing stages on the hard.
In what is expected to be a two-stop, dry race, the strategy and the work of the teams on the pitwalls will be crucial in deciding who will be the winner of the 2024 Spanish GP. In the first instance, it will be Lando who starts from pole position and can set the race pace to his liking, but he will have to open a gap right from the start to prevent Max from having DRS on the opening laps.
In conclusion, whoever can best read the track conditions, the evolution of the track and tyre wear management will be the winner. The first few laps will be key in determining the strategic battle. And an important fact to bear in mind is that the poleman in Barcelona has won 72% of the races. Out of 33 races contested, 24 times the driver who has started from pole position has been victorious.
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