Spain in numbers: ten winners, two strategies and four thousandths

Five races in Spain produced five different winners from the five who had won in Singapore. Two rounds into Season 8, IMS has held ten division races without anybody winning twice. That's a nod of approval for the pace balancing mechanisms in IMS.

That variety has left room for consistency as well as victories. Piastrigoat and ximqf now lead their drivers’ championships without having won this season.

10 races, 10 different winners

Williams supplied two of Spain’s winners through Zozo and jhazztan, after finishing Singapore without a victory. Aston Martin, Cadillac and Audi shared the other three. For Jacko, Spain finally brought a first win; for Cadillac, it was their only podium of the weekend. His personal breakthrough arrived as the team lost its BOTT lead to Williams.

Two stops scored more; one stop won more

Our pre-race strategy study favoured a one-stop starting plan. But in reality, pulling it off required immense discipline and tyre management. Three winners made it work: Zozo, Rizla and Jacko each won with one stop, while jhazztan and Jean won with two.

The two-stop group collected 404 points against the one-stoppers’ 283, but that was from 47 cars as opposed to the one-stop's 20. Per classified car, the return was 14.2 points for one stop and 8.6 for two; the smaller one-stop group took eight podiums to the two-stoppers’ seven. Being able to manage ailing tyres was an invaluable advantage, giving the opportunity to score almost the double the points.

Classified results only, grouped by recorded pit stops. Points exclude pole, fastest-lap and BOTT bonuses; retirements are separate.

The closing laps supplied both sides of the argument. In D1, HP was quicker than Rizla on each of the final eleven laps, recovering 13.906 seconds through lap time. His two-stop chase still ended 0.495 seconds behind the winning one-stopper, with Webbah between them.

In D2, the chase arrived in time. Jhazztan got ahead of one-stopper pwjones on the final lap to win by 0.662 seconds. Williams took a one-two, but its two drivers had reached the finish by different routes. Jhazztan used the fresher tyres to attack; pwjones still led entering the final lap.

Jacko offered the one-stoppers a more comfortable ending. Ximqf’s two-stop recovery brought him second, but he finished 7.903 seconds behind the Cadillac. Preserving the Hards had delivered Jacko his first IMS victory.

782 overtakes, with D1 supplying nearly a third

Spain produced 782 overtakes across its five races. D1 supplied the largest share with 248, followed by D3 on 211 and E3 on 182. D2 contributed 99 and D0 another 42.

The two busiest races were both won by one-stoppers. As every overtake that had to be made on that last set of mediums would take life out of the tyres ever so quicker. Rizla in D1 and Jacko in D3 made the strategy work in divisions that together supplied 459 overtakes, almost three in every five across the weekend.

DoctorB made nineteen overtakes in D3 and still started and finished sixth. Josh made seventeen on his way from fourteenth to seventh, finishing directly behind the VCARB. In D2, Tedhead made ten but finished fifth from second on the grid.

The E3 podium fight kept L3on and Turnip exchanging places through the final stint. L3on got ahead on lap 23, lost the place on the next lap, traded it again on lap 29 and finally stayed ahead from lap 31. His eventual third place, only 0.232 seconds ahead of Hotshot after penalties, concealed how often he had needed to win the position back.

Four thousandths bought the narrowest pole

Zozo’s advantage over piastrigoat was the smallest pole margin of the weekend: 0.004 seconds. HP’s Williams front-row lockout came by 0.025 seconds over Webbah, while rbn beat Tedhead by 0.064 seconds. Three of the five front rows were separated by less than a tenth.

Jean had the largest pole advantage and converted it into an Audi one-two. Zozo had the smallest and still won, but only after both Aston Martins had taken turns ahead of him. HP, rbn and Freed each finished on the podium or immediately outside it, without converting their poles into victories.

They were part of a wider pattern. Only two of the season’s first ten races have been won from pole; eight winners have had to find first place from further back.

A 114-point swing puts Williams ahead of Cadillac

Williams arrived in Spain 59 BOTT points behind Cadillac and left 55 ahead. Their 189-point weekend against Cadillac’s 75 turned the gap around by 114, putting the reigning champions top of the table on 275.

The Singapore question about their depth received an answer beyond the two wins. Williams’ points from finishes outside the podium rose from five to 39. Trident supplied fifteen in D3, while Brystaroz and Turnip added thirteen and eleven in E3. Hats off to Zopz for the turnaround.

Cadillac’s supporting score went the other way: Jacko supplied thirty of their thirty-four points from D3 and E3.

Shriz’s reply to the old fourth-place forecast began with a deflective humor: “We’re still not fourth, so haha joke’s still on you R2 (jk ily).” He was blunter about Spain itself: “It was a shit weekend, Jacko’s win being the only ray of hope.”

Over the seasons, we have seen one disasterous weekend early in the season derail a team's entire push, and be the reason they fall short at the end - notably Ferrari S6 R1, and VCARB S4 R2. The question is, will this be as good as it gets for Caddy?

His confidence in the squad survived that verdict: “Yes we did lose a few too many points than what would be acceptable even on a bad weekend, but that still does not change my belief in my team. I have an extremely strong group of individuals as my teammates, and i am completely confident that the whole is going to be much greater than the sum of it.”

Asked what would change for Texas, he replied: “Only thing we’re changing for Texas is setups. Good and bad weekends are a part and parcel of the BOTT when you’ve got competitive divisions all around thanks to IMS’ world class license calculations, but you don’t start sharpening the guillotine blade over one or two suboptimal performances.”

The question Shrizzzler faces is an uncomfortable one, because if the team do not have a great performance in COTA, he will have to ask himself, "Did we just get lucky in Singapore?"

“I’m not giving you any team scores to hold me to, but I can tell you that we will be carving back into the top two’s lead over us”.

Only time will tell whether Cadillac can overcome this speedbump of a weekend, but looking at history, it is likely that this ends up being the reason they fall short at the end of the season, even if they recover form.

Audi score 60 points outside their E3 one-two

Jean and Paddle’s one-two supplied 54 BOTT points, but Audi collected another sixty elsewhere. The other four divisions therefore outscored the team’s entire forty-point Singapore weekend before its E3 winners were counted. Audi finished Spain with 114 points and climbed from seventh to fourth in BOTT.

Alex and Leandro brought twenty-six BOTT points from D0, while Shiesty and João added eighteen in D3.

Jean said Audi had changed its approach, with the preparation particularly helping his own weekend. Practising together was part of that change: “What we changed was that we actually did practise consistenly through the week whenever we were free and bored enough to boot up this game, it was great to learn the track and know where to push when you have nice people with you and not the void of silence.”

He then named the person behind that preparation: “The credit without a doubt takes Higosh, he got us great setups, great adjustments and also just really nice laps to learn from, I think off the top of my head he sent us 3 different laps and ERS plans to help us and his setups were just great from the get go. He was the architect of this successful weekend.”

Cadillac are the next team ahead, but Jean does not want a fixed BOTT position to become a source of pressure inside the squad. He said aiming to do their best helped keep the team’s chemistry supportive; a top-three finish would be welcome. It is only a matter of time before Audi surge past the wounded Cadillac and put themselves in with a chance at irritating the Top 2.

For Texas, the emphasis was on the team result: “My Texas target is maximizing the team result, I am more than willing to give up the win or multiple wins over the season for Paddle to taste the Champagne, he is sometimes annoying honestly but a great guy and really funny, so I would always prefer keeping the spirits up than to boast my stats, my drivers is what make Audi a team, not just me.”

Mjon supplies 83% of Mercedes’ Spain BOTT points

Mjon’s two appearances produced 25 of Mercedes’ thirty BOTT points in Spain. Across the opening two rounds, he has supplied 52 of their 69. Fifth in D1 and eighth in D0 kept the team scoring, even without the podium he had targeted in his regular division.

Our Mercedes preview had asked how Connor would put enough cars around his main scorer. Spain brought five Mercedes entries across the weekend, with Pooldiver’s ninth in D2 supplying the only other five BOTT points. Getting more cars to join mjon’s score remains the team’s immediate job.