Except of the side trip to Canada in early June, the Formula 1 Circus will stay in Europe until September, starting –as usual- this weekend in Spain. Spain owns one of the historic Grand Prix. The first F1-GP was hosted in Spain on October, 28th 1951 at the Pedralbes Circuit in Barcelona. It was the 11th Spanish Grand Prix already. Ascari was able to achieve the pole with his 375 (s/n 05) but it was José Froilán González who sacked the best result for the Scuderia, coming in as second with s/n 07.
There have been notable breaks in the range of Spanish Grand Prix. There are gaps in 1952/53 and from 1955 to 1968 and the places changed as well until 1992: Barcelona, Madrid and Jerez held the Spanish Grand Prix. Since the 1992 race, with the 34th Spanish Grand Prix, the race found its home at the Circuit de Catalunya, the newly built 4.655 km track that is used for the official winter tests as well. With 7 turns to the left and 9 turns to the right –none of it being a high speed turn-, the F1-cars are reaching an average speed of 184 km/h.
Mike Hawthorn was the first driver for the Scuderia to win the Spanish GP in 1954 on a 625 with s/n 02. The most recent victory was achieved by Kimi Räikkönen in 2008 when he raced #270, a F2008. Both current drivers of the Scuderia did win in Barcelona already. Alonso made it in 2006 when he was with Renault. Massa made it in the year after with F2007 #260.
The “real” King of Barcelona has to be Michael Schumacher winning in 1996 (#171)and who took four consecutive wins from 2001 to 2004 (#s 210, 221, 229 and 234). The other victories are related to Scuderia-heroes: Lauda (1974, #014) and Villeneuve (1981, #052) at Jarama and Alain Prost in 1990 at Jerez de la Frontera with #121. 13 times the pole position went to a driver of the Scuderia, the last one coincided with Kimi’s most recent Scuderia-victory in Spain in 2008.