Barcelona Beckons

by David&Michelle · June 6, 2023

The Spanish Grand Prix near Barcelona, in the heart of Catalan country. The Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya is set in the beautiful rural area of Catalonia. The region is fiercely Catalonian – lots of Catalan flags, zero Spanish flags. The circuit is a good half hour from Barcelona by train to Montmelo, followed by a 45 minute walk to the ground! The walk was easy and not unpleasant but if you are in General Admission (GA), like us, then you need to duck and dive and overtake like Le Clerc cannot do, in order to secure your spot!

The GA situation takes a lot of working out and if you are not careful you can spend hours walking around the huge ground trying to find a spot. We were lucky in that a friend of ours (thanks Claudiu) gave us tips like using the tunnel near gate 5! Suffice to say that the Thursday was used for extensive reconnoiter purposes (all this is irrelevant if you have a seat- get the hint?). Once we decided on a spot for the race, and it was a beauty of a spot too, the trick is to get there EARLY to make sure you secure that spot. On race day we arrived at 9 am (race is at 3pm) and the place was heaving – lots of people with chairs, so pick a spot where the people in front are on the ground too! Keeping the spot for 5 hours in the heat, and rain and heat again was very tiring. The slope is about 35 degrees, so you are battling with rolling down the hill too – for oldies this takes a lot of energy – although I did manage a kip at one point.

The qualies were great with thunder, lightening and rain playing a big part in proceedings. Lots of big names dropping out into lower placings and some surprises like both McLarens and both Alpines in the top ten, Le Clerc not making P2, Cheko not making P1! The 2 Mercedes making contact with one another, cars impeding other cars and penalties ensuing. The crowd favourite, Alonso, was not having a great time but he made it to P9. Looks like an exciting race to come.

Sadly, the race itself was pretty predictable, Verstappen lapping half the field with the nearest car being more than 20 seconds behind. The Red Bull machine is pretty much unstoppable. It was great, for me at least, to see Mercedes make it up into P2 and P3. Ferrari made the now obligatory strategic blunders and bad decisions and ended up nowhere in P5 and P11!

I must add that the Spanish / Catalonian crowd were fantastic. They sang and cheered and did Mexican waves all day. They really loved Alonso and cheered and sang for him constantly, they booed anything French (which was surprising) and generally had a great time! Fantastic atmosphere, very friendly and all round great fun. The fans made our first GA a great day to remember for all the right reasons.

Wonderful also to catch up with our friend from Romania, Claudiu, who we met in Bahrain and will continue to see at future races this year – what a pleasure!