2026 Spanish GP Raceday Preview

James Punt kept things ticking over with a winner in qualifying. Check out his 2026 Spanish GP Raceday preview and tips below.

2026 Spanish GP Raceday

We missed out on pole by 0.06s last week, and by 0.01s this week. Harsh. At least Leclerc managed to beat Russell, so no great damage done.

Onto the race, and a step into the unknown, but at least we know more than we did a couple of days ago. We know that the track is not good for overtaking. We know that any accidents or retirements are likely to require a safety car or red flag. We know that tyre degradation has been high.

However, the rate of degradation is improving. In the F2 race, those that pitted early didn’t get much of an advantage over the cars at the front on the older tyres. Many drivers pitted too early, didn’t gain much and then got caught out by a safety car, which allowed the leader to have a cheap stop and retain track position, and with newer tyres. Running in clean air was more of an advantage than new tyres.

Tough To Overtake

There are tracks that are hard to overtake on, the Madring is not alone in having this problem. It is just disappointing that it is a brand-new track and nobody looked at the plans and thought, ‘what about overtaking?’. It is what it is, for this year at least. We have to assume that grid positions are very important here, much like Monaco. Maybe we should expect the finishing order to be much like the starting order.

The one thing that can mix things up is a red flag. I am going straight to red flags as there have been so many in the support races and a couple in free practice. We got away with it in qualifying yesterday, but when you see odds of 1.57 for a red flag during the race, you can see that it is likely.

No Cranes

When racing at Monaco, unless it is a really big smash, the track marshals are able to get the cars shifted off the track very quickly. They are used to doing it, and they have the right equipment. Lots of cranes around the track that can lift the cars away and off the track quickly. They don’t have any here.

The marshals are having to bring flatbed trucks onto the track to remove the cars, and you can’t have flat beds and racing cars on the track at the same time, hence the red flags. Again, you would have thought somebody might have thought of this in the planning stage.

The one thing I hate about red flags is that while in the pit lane, the teams are allowed to work on the cars. Replace any damaged parts, fit new tyres and so on. That can turn a race on its head.

Major Disruption

You can have the scenario of a driver leading the race by ten seconds, on a decent set of tyres, with 15 laps to go. The car chasing him is on older tyres and no real threat. Then there is a red flag, everyone gets new tyres and we have a standing start.

The driver that was totally in control now has to do another standing start, so his ten second lead has gone, and he has no tyre advantage. He makes a poor start and loses the ‘race’. It’s crap.

 

Of course, it might be that we get away without a red flag, so what else might change the order? Strategy. With a high degradation track, we are likely to see differences in strategy as teams try to outsmart their rivals. Of course, the teams may now be revising their thoughts about degradation having watched the support races.

Tyre Tactics

Tyre strategy will be interesting. The start of the race is always a reasonable chance to make a place or two. Get a good jump off the line and a driver can improve their position. I image that at least some of the drivers will want to start on the soft tyre to get the best grip off the line.

The downside is that you then have an earlier pitstop to make, and are probably locked into a two-stop strategy, and that on a track with a very long pit lane and around 25 seconds for a pit stop. There is a golden scenario for soft tyre starters. An early safety car/red flag. That would allow for a cheap pit stop and a switch to a more durable tyre.

I guess most will hedge their bets and start on the mediums. Decent grip off the line and more durable. And those drivers out of position, or nearer the back, might do the old, start on the hard tyre and run deep, hope for a late safety car and a one stopper. That can bring the backmarkers into a points scoring position.

Crunching Numbers

The race engineers will have been crunching the numbers to come up with their cunning plans. And with so few chances to overtake, those engineers have a big role to play. As do the pit crews. A sticky wheel nut can be the difference between winning and losing, between a point and no points.

It does look like we are in for a very dull race. It might need a red flag to breathe some life into it. Having watched the F3 race, I think I saw one overtake, and that was due to a driver having a big slide and allowing the car behind to pass. There was even a very late safety car, and a one lap shoot out at the end of the procession, and nothing happened. Even the dramatic bit was dull.

The F2 race was a little better.  We had two safety cars, one caused by someone trying to overtake another car, and driving him off the road, into the barriers. It underlined the fact that overtaking is very difficult, and very risky.

Starting Position Key

We have only the junior formula races to go on as a guide. The two F3 races were won from pole. The F2 sprint was won from second on the grid, with the driver getting a better start and taking the lead off the line, leading the race to the end to win a dull race. The F2 feature race was won from pole, very comfortably. The first three on the grid finished on the podium.

There is already a pattern. Get the lead at the start and win. Of course, the F3 races didn’t have a mandatory pitstop which the F1 cars have, so that has the potential to change things, but so long as the stops are well executed, it shouldn’t make much difference.

2026 Spanish GP Raceday Summary

You may have guessed that I am not particularly enthused by the Madring. It is not a good racetrack. I don’t care that the drivers think it’s fun to drive, it is a poor racetrack. Last week we had a driver coming from 19th to win the race. Yes, he was helped by circumstances, but there is no way it could have happened here.

To make an overtake here you need your car to be significantly faster than the car in front. Maybe if we have a car on new tyres behind a car on 25 lap old tyres, we might get that, but this looks like a race that may have already been won.

Of the thirteen races already run in 2026, nine have been won from pole. A mechanical issue robbed Antonelli of a pole in at Silverstone, Russell retired from the lead in Montreal, and last week’s race would have been from pole, but for a late VSC that allowed Antonelli to have a cheap stop for new tyres. Hamilton’s win in Barcelons was arguably the only time that a race has been won from off pole position, rather than been lost from pole due to circumstances outside the driver’s control.

Pole Sitter

Logically, today’s pole sitter should be odds on to win, and on a track like this, even more so. But he isn’t, he isn’t even the favourite. That honour goes to Antonelli. The Mercedes isn’t any quicker than the McLaren. Once Norris, who has missed a lot of track time, got comfortable and went for it, he was faster. A mistake in the last corner cost him 0.3 seconds according to his team.

Mercedes expected McLaren to be the fastest car this weekend, and so it proved to be. It was just hidden due to Norris missing FP2. Piastri is not a good barometer of the car’s pace, but that was what we had in FP2 and then FP3  was a funny session with more time lost due to the red flags. The logical, and value bet here, has to be Norris.

2026 Spanish GP Raceday Tip: 2 points Lando Norris to win @ 2.77 with Livescorebet

The same logic suggests that Verstappen is in line for another podium finish. He has only started better than third three times in 2026, and only in Belgium did he convert that into a podium. In Miami he made a mess of his start and spun, and in Monaco a power unit failure meant he was out on lap 1. Verstappen is just 1.67 to finish on the podium which is too short for me.

The points finish market also looks short on value. Colapinto is 1.67, Lindblad 1.75, Hulkenberg 1.91 and Bortoleto 2.10. No meat on those bones.

Group Betting

The bookies haven’t missed the fact that track position is king on this track. The drivers highest up the grid are the group favourites, as they should be. There is one group where I will take a chance on a driver being able to move up a place to win their group.

Group 4 (with Unibet, Fitzdares) has Albon as the 2.10 favourite, Alonso 3.30, Sainz 3.50 and Stroll 12.00. Albon starts from 16th, Alonso 17th, Sainz 20th and Stroll 22nd. The top two in the betting get a reasonable bit of track position advantage.

Alonso was faster than the Williams of Albon in practice but just lost out in qualifying. He needed 81 thousandths of a second to leapfrog the two Williamses. That is down to the Honda power unit. Alonso reckons it is costing him a second a lap.

The Aston Martin chassis is better than the Williams, and on a track that is not power sensitive, maybe that better chassis will be the difference over a race distance. Alonso has beaten Albon in two of the last three races, basically since they introduced the B spec Aston Martin. Alonso is pretty handy at the race starts and he looks worth a bet at the odds.

2026 Spanish GP Raceday Tip: 1 point Fernado Alonso to win Group 4 @ 3.30 with Unibet

-JamesPunt