The Spanish Grand Prix, usually considered a boring race due to the poor overtaking opportunities. But we knew this would be a good race, the first race back as Mclaren racing. The hype in the factory was clear, an intern even said he saw Kimi smile. This would be the first race under the new Mclaren-Ferrari partnership as well, so we had to get good results or the race would be an ultimate anti-climax.

Practice

All the practices were delayed due to an electronic glitch in the flag system, leaving it to be a twilight practice session. Max got pissed at this, as he had homework to do. Kimi was as cool as ever, and once he heard of the delay went “bwoah,ifthetrackisntreadythenthetrackisntready”. The two drivers had different ways of coping with the extra time. Max did his history essay on the Monaco GP, and Kimi spent the time at the bar. Once it was time for FP1, both of them were mentality shattered but realised that they would still be faster than BRM. FP1 was primarily focused on race pace, and finished mid-pack. FP2 was to check how fast we could be and finished an impressive 2nd and 4th. We let Ferrari do the setups for FP3, but the drivers weren’t at their sharpest and finished near the bottom.

Qualifying

A beautiful Spanish morning was ruined when we found Kimi in his hotel room puking his guts out. He thought that he could take on a bunch of Russian fans in a Vodka drink off. We had to act fast. Luckily Minttu was attending the Grand Prix, so she had brought Robin to the race. He had been running the sim all week, trying to break the youngest driver record, something Max wasn’t pleased with. The MFIA did not know about this. We had to put a booster seat in the car quickly and stilts so that he could reach the pedals. Mclaren finally handled a driver situation well. “Kimi” wasn’t used to the car setup, but still finished in front of the BRM, dropping out in Q3 at an impressive 17th place. Max just got through Q2 edging the Lotus out, but finished last in Q3. These were still improvements from the previous weeks.

Race

Our drivers were ready for the race. Kimi and Minttu spent the night together in a hotel room, and Kimi was really happy the following morning. Max was feeling a bit down after a Tinder date stood him up the previous night. He was cheered up by the race, as we promised him a party with blackjack and hookers if he got points. With the race finally underway, we realised Kimi was struggling. After 17 laps, the engine data showed that Kimi was only running on the hybrid. He was quite annoyed at this, but such is life. With Kimi in race mode, he gained an amazing 7 spots to get into the points. Max had consistent pace throughout the race, not making any major errors, he gained two spots to finish in 8th place.

After a very disappointing Turkish GP, the Spanish race finally brought some smiles to our faces. We finally got double points, and Max got his party with Blackjack and Hookers. Live long and Prosper MF1.