Just under forty minutes to go until lights out. The cars head out onto the grid.

Not quite sure this was the look the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya was going for when they installed giant driver portraits in the empty grandstands...

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Lewis Hamilton has won four times in Spain, including the last three in a row (2014, 2017, 2018, 2019).

Valtteri Bottas was on pole last year but Hamilton passed him at the first corner and eased to an ultimately comfortable win.

Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer

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Carlos Sainz was struggling throughout the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix with an overheating problem, which required the car’s cooling vents to be opened, which affected aerodynamics and compromised speed.

McLaren changed his chassis for this weekend, hoping that might fix it, but on Friday the problem remained, and as a last resort McLaren swapped in a new engine overnight, a race earlier than planned. And it did the trick. From 13th on the grid a week ago, Sainz will be seventh, and was a smidge disappointed not to have beaten Red Bull’s Alex Albon to sixth.

“New engine, new life,” Sainz said. “It was definitely a good change. I’d like to thank the team and everyone involved in this decision because it was, I guess, not an easy decision to try and bring the power unit forward one race - we were planning to use it in Spa.

"But in the end, we decided to use it here because the other engine was giving us cooling issues, but also performance issues, and because of that, I think we did the right thing to to put it here this weekend. I’m relieved, to be honest, because it's given us a lot of headaches lately.”

Another hot one today in Spain.

I could have done with some of these keeping cool top tips from McLaren when it was roasting here at BBC Sport HQ in Costa del Salford last week.

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Digging deeper into the stats doesn't bode well for anyone apart from Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas.

The only drivers to win in Barcelona after not starting on the front row are Michael Schumacher (third on the grid in 1996), Fernando Alonso (fifth on the grid in 2013) and Max Verstappen (fourth on the grid in 2016).

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Neither Ferrari driver was a happy man after qualifying. Charles Leclerc made it into the top 10, but could only manage ninth when he got there, unable to improve on the time he set on his first run in the second session.

“I am just not happy with the car,” Leclerc said. “This morning I was. Beginning of qualifying it was OK but then it fell out session after session and it just didn’t have enough front end to rotate the car and we lost quite a bit of time because of this. It is something we regularly have with this car, struggling with the front in mid-corner but today there were not really any solutions.”

Sebastian Vettel, meanwhile, did not make it into the top 10, and ended up 12th. His problem was the opposite - oversteer. “First sector was OK,” he said.

“The middle sector the car started to be more and more nervous, I struggled in particular in turn seven losing the rear half way so it was difficult to judge how much speed to carry in, also turn five was very tricky. It got better towards the end but still very tricky to find the right balance. There are still some things I can’t give an answer to but I am trying to do everything I can and ignore all the things that might not be right and do the best I can. That’s all I can do at the moment.”

Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer

A solid qualifying performance from Racing Point, with Sergio Perez fourth on his return to the field after missing two races with coronavirus, and Lance Stroll fifth.

Everyone knows the ‘pink Mercedes’ is fast, but the challenge for Perez and Stroll is to fulfill its potential in the race, which has arguably not happened once so far this season.

Perez said: “The key will be getting a strong start, so that we have the track position to make our strategy work. Overtaking will be difficult and tyre management will be a real challenge.”

Ask. And you shall receive...

Lance Stroll said he fancied an ice cream after Saturday's qualifying session, and his Racing Point team didn't disappoint.

An ice-cold treat was promptly delivered to the Canadian in his motorhome.

Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer

Image source, Reuters

What do the Mercedes drivers expect from their tyres in the race, after their struggles at both Silverstone events?

The tyres are one grade harder this weekend than they were at the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix, where Mercedes struggled from blistering and Verstappen pounced.

But it is the same selection of tyres as the British Grand Prix, where high wear led to failures on both Mercedes cars in the last two laps, costing Valtteri Bottas second place and almost costing Lewis Hamilton the win.

Hamilton said: “We expect (Red Bull) to be, probably a little bit better, I would imagine. It’s definitely not going to be easy for us. I don’t think we’ll have the same problems we had last week - but obviously we’ll find out when we get in the race. We’ve got those hot conditions but we have a harder compound, so fingers crossed that helps. I wouldn’t put it past us having problems.”

Bottas said: “We are expecting less issues than last weekend, just because it’s a different type of track and so far we’ve seen no issues with blistering or things like what happened at Silverstone. I think it’s going to be difficult. Here always if it’s hot it’s just always about the overheating, especially the tyre surface overheating and trying to manage that. And yes, we’ve seen Red Bull is pretty strong when it’s warm, and when it’s all about tyre management.”

PhilSlocombe: It is going to be a 3 way fight today, but I have a feeling it will be Valtteri's day for the win and a new record of podiums for Lewis.

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All but four of the last 19 Spanish Grands Prix have been won from pole position.

BBC Radio 5 Live

There will be live race commentary on BBC Radio 5 live and online and you can listen to build up from 13:00 BST.

Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer

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Max Verstappen started fourth at Silverstone a week ago and won. Can he do the same from third in Spain? Mercedes feel the Red Bull might have better race pace than them but Verstappen is not so sure.

“Difficult to say at the moment,” he said after qualifying.

“I felt happy in the car. I just hope that I can apply a bit of pressure. I know that it is very hard to overtake around here, but we’re going to do everything we can to be close to them and top try to make a bit difficult.”

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Another week, another chance for Lewis Hamilton to break a record.

He currently has 155 career podiums and can break the record he currently shares with Michael Schumacher with another top three finish today.