F1 Spanish GP qualifying live updates: Verstappen on pole; Gasly ...

The Summer Olympic Games headed to Barcelona in 1992, and as part of the development program, Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya was built.

The first cars to hit the track in 1991 were racing in the Spanish Touring Car Championship, and two weeks later, Formula One took it for a spin. Nigel Mansell and Ayrton Senna ended up in a drag race of sorts, going wheel-to-wheel down the straight.

Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya features a mix of low and high-speed corners, such as the final sequence and Turn 3 (which is a known place where teams can get a better understanding of the car’s balance). It’s a familiar track for the grid as drivers have competed, tested and done filming days in Spain, but only two drivers have experience with the pair of high-speed final corners: Fernando Alonso (in a F1 race) and Lewis Hamilton (in testing).

“I do remember testing here in 2006, my first test here in a McLaren, and that was I think two or three or four days of the high speed last corners. I remember I couldn’t hold my head up,” Hamilton said Thursday. “The team asked me, I think Gary Paffett was one of the test drivers, they were like, ‘Gary uses the pad, do you want the pad?’ I was like ‘No no no, my neck’s strong!’

“I remember getting to Turn 1 and just straight away not being able to hold my head up. I’d come back in and say, ‘No, no, my neck is good,’ but I was in so much pain, struggling to sleep at night.”

The chicane initially was a safety change, but todays’ cars should be able to handle the faster turns, according to McLaren team principal Andrea Stella.

“At the time, I think Formula One cars, they were like go karts with a lot of power, a little bit of aerodynamic forces and very, very light cars,” Stella said when discussing the cars of 20 years ago compared to this season’s. “They were 200 kilograms (441 pounds) lighter than these cars. This generation of Formula One cars nowadays, like the second to last corner is easy flat in all conditions.

“At the time, it was a challenging corner, but they are much quicker, even if they are 200 kilograms heavier, because of an enormous amount of downforce, much bigger tires and much more grip as well, and still quite powerful engines.”

One other turn to keep an eye on is Turn 9, Campsa. It’s a speedy righthander to head onto the back straight, making it a trickier corner. Back during the 2008 grand prix, Heikki Kovalainen flew straight into the barriers.