Catalunya, Spain plays host to the fifth round of the Formula 1 World Championship and the Spanish Grand Prix. It also marks the start of the European Formula 1 season.

It looks as though we are going to have a dry Spanish Grand Prix this weekend. Temperatures are expected to stay in the low to mid twenties with lots of sun expected on Friday and Saturday. For Friday’s practice sessions and Saturday’s practice and qualifying it will be warm with a few clouds overhead. The weather for the race on Sunday is expected to be overcast with a very low chance for rain.

With low ambient temperatures and very high tyre degradation expected because of some of the wide radius corners we can expect to see lots of graining and plenty of tyre marbles that will be left off the racing line.

It does seem that Mercedes have the upper hand for this grand prix. It will be very interesting to see if they’ve extended their advantage over the three week break or have other teams caught up to them