Alex Withington: The big question today is whether Ferrari's pace in qualifying reflects their race performance. If it does it's a Mercedes 1-2. If not, this could be a hum-dinger with both red cars chasing down the Silver Arrows.

Joe Armstrong: If Alonso gets on the podium today, surely we’re talking about him being the best, and most consistent, driver on the grid? He’s fallen short in the past but you’d never bet against him.

Bob McFeil: I reckon quite a few drivers would rather race Maldonado than be in a tussle with the Red Bulls.

Ben Wire: This F1 season is like when Leicester won the Premiership: a typically two or three horse-race is suddenly wide open, unpredictable, dramatic. And like cricket, the devil will be in the detail: small gains and fine margins combining with drama lead to a delicious spectator sport.

Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer

Brendon Hartley is feeling a "strange sensation in the cockpit, a burning under my (bleep)". Team say they know what it is and will fix it on the grid.

Image source, Getty Images

Brendon Hartley missed qualifying yesterday after crashing in final practice but the Toro Rosso team have got his car ready for today's race. Incredible effort.

He and the rest of the field have just taken their cars out onto the grid.

We last had a Finnish winner of the Spanish Grand Prix a decade ago when Kimi Raikkonen took victory ahead of Felipe Massa and Lewis Hamilton.

Will Bottas end Finland's long wait?

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Valtteri Bottas, who starts in second, said: "This year is always tricky, I'm just happy we did it (an all-Mercedes front row) for the first time this year.

"The team has done a fantastic job and hopefully we can have a perfect day today. We need to race fair but I really want to win as well."

Image source, Getty Images

You can listen to full commentary of the Spanish Grand Prix from the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya at 14:00 BST on BBC Radio 5 live sports extra or by using the media player at the top of this page.

Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer

Image source, Getty Images

More info on BBC Sport’s revelation last night that former IndyCar driver Gil De Ferran has taken on an informal advisory role at McLaren.

The 50-year-old Brazilian, who was Fernando Alonso’s driver coach at the Indy 500 last year, is first and foremost looking at how McLaren can better work with young drivers. His prime focus this weekend at least is on Stoffel Vandoorne, who has been struggling to match Alonso. And insiders say it is already obvious that the Belgian is more confident as a result of De Ferran’s presence.

De Ferran will come to a number of races - and definitely the next two in Monaco and Canada. And he will also be offering up any thoughts or observations about anything of interest he sees about the team and its operations.

Sebastian Vettel, third on the grid, says: "It is a long race, we will try to have a good start and see if we can do something into turn one.

"The track is pretty good, nice to see lots of people coming, we have been quicker than any year before and that always feels great and that should be the case in the race.

"The championship is not on my mind, it is more important to lead at the end of the year not now."

Image source, Getty Images

No-one has won as many Spanish Grand Prix races as Michael Schumacher (six).

Victory for Lewis Hamilton will be his third Spanish GP win, the same amount Jackie Stewart and Nigel Mansell won.

RantingMrP: Verstappen and Ricciardo alongside each other on the grid - with a long drag to Turn One. Hard to see how this doesn't result in some grief... There will be safety cars.

Amit Mandalia: A greener track, prospect of rain & the top three teams all occupying the top six on the grid... that’s got the makings of an exciting race.

Keith Murphy: Looks like it should be a simple 1 2 for Mercedes today. Have a feeling Vettel will pull it off though.

Here's the tyre sets still in play for today's race.

The cars were slipping and sliding all over the place on Friday and with rain having washed the track clean overnight, things could get very interesting today.

Image source, Pirelli

Ross Macfarlane: It's all great, except that a faster driver can't follow and then overtake a slower driver in lots of/most instances.

Kayleigh: 2012 was a fun season! Seven different winners from the first seven races, title went down to the last race in Brazil - and what a race that was! 2018 has possibly been just as unpredictable. Long may it continue!

A touch of class from Fernando Alonso.

The above fan was caught on camera enthusiastically cheering his hero. Fernando Alonso tweeted F1.com asking for them to help find the youngster and get him in the paddock today.

The result...

Daniel Ricciardo, who has won once and failed to finish in two of the past three races, starts sixth. He said: "I’m enjoying it here, it is at least hat and sunglasses weather now and at least it is warn for the drivers’ parade, it is never fun when it is cold.

"I’m looking forward to shining and hopefully we can show something. With our qualifying pace I thought that was all we had but hopefully we have more today."

Image source, Getty Images

Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer

Image source, Getty Images

Fernando Alonso starts in his best grid position of the year having qualified the heavily updated McLaren eighth. He has finished in the points every race so far this year despite qualifying out of the top 10, and joked: “We average a recovery of six places, so P2 should be possible.”

Actually, though, he is at a potential disadvantage to those around him because he is the only top 10 qualifier starting on the super-softs, having failed to improve on the softs in Q2 (although he did set his fastest time on them in Q3).

But he said he had “maximised” qualifying” and was “happy with my starting tyre”. The super-softs are not expected to be as good for the race as the softs, with similar pace but higher degradation.

Those on softs will try to one-stop, switching to the mediums. Alonso will almost certainly have to do two. But he said: “We don’t know if (the tyre situation) is good or bad. It depends on the temperature, the conditions, maybe it is damp at the start. I am happy with the starting tyre and the position so let’s see.”