Spanish Grand Prix: Lewis Hamilton's McLaren debacle, Max Verstappen's first Red Bull victory and more memories (2023)

Formula 1 teams love confidence, but in a sport where anything can happen, that's hard to come by. However, this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix battleground, the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, could provide hints of what's to come.

The circuit, just a 40-minute drive from Barcelona, ​​has been known to teams as a traditional test track in years past, with its perfect mix of medium and high-speed turns helping teams understand how good its aerodynamics are.

Mercedes will be among the few teams traveling to Spain interested after improvements were revealed on Monaco's exclusive roads and now they want to know how it really performs.

But the Spanish GP also has a knack for predicting F1 futures - here, Sky Sports F1 takes a look at six recent examples...

• Spanish Grand Prix schedule: when to watch practice, qualifying and races on Sky Sports
• 'Motivation, Le Mans, victory' - Max Verstappen's doubts about F1's future
• Hamilton: Mercedes advanced | Russell regrets a mistake that cost him P3
• Get Sky Sports|Listen to the Sky Sports F1 podcast

2012: A reason for Hamilton to move to Mercedes?

Similar to the 2023 season, Lewis Hamilton's contract expired at the end of the year in 2012, so the then McLaren team hoped they could supply a car to give Hamilton the confidence to stay.

It got off to a promising start, with McLaren winning the first race of the season in Australia through Hamilton's team-mate Jenson Button.

Hamilton knew he had the fastest car at the start of the season and could claim his first world championship since 2008.

However, that season's Spanish GP would sum up why 2012 would prove to be a year of disappointment for Hamilton.

The Briton took pole position, an impressive half a second ahead of the rest of the field, but, from the celebrations, he quickly returned to the ground when his team told him to stop on track.

McLaren did not put enough fuel in the car to be sampled by F1's governing body, the FIA, and Hamilton was disqualified from qualifying, dropping to the back of the grid.

While we've seen Hamilton come back from the back of the grid to score plenty of points since then, this has been a season in which a number of drivers and teams have been competitive - the first seven races have seen seven different Grand Prix winners.

So while Hamilton would fight his way back to eighth place, impressively beating team-mate Button, Venezuelan Pastor Maldonado took his only and final win for Williams to date in a thrilling duel with Ferrari's Fernando Alonso.

Hamilton could have won this race, but was made difficult by his team.

This theme continued throughout 2012, from painfully late pit stops to technical failures, leaving Hamilton unable to compete with the consistency of Sebastian Vettel and Alonso.

Hamilton's gearbox failure in Singapore that year was widely seen as the moment Hamilton decided to switch from McLaren to Mercedes, but perhaps the crucial failure in Barcelona was the first of the seeds to grow in Hamilton's head that the year.

Meanwhile at Mercedes, a certain Michael Schumacher crashed out of the race after misjudging Bruno Senna's braking and clumsily hitting his back.

The legendary Schumacher would take the blame and a penalty from the stewards, perhaps encouraging his Mercedes team to look elsewhere for a replacement.

2014: The Silver War turned sour

Many suggested that Hamilton's move to Mercedes would ruin his career as he went from a winning spot to a team struggling in midfield.

In just his second season though, the skeptics were silenced as Hamilton dueled with former friend and team-mate Nico Rosberg for the title in a dominant Mercedes.

In Spain, Hamilton started from pole position but was frustrated by his team's decision to change tires early in the race, which allowed Rosberg to close on fresher tires in the final laps to challenge for victory.

When interviewed on the podium, Hamilton admitted he was "moving [his settings] up and down, really trying to get extra time".

It later became clear that Hamilton was using engine functions he should not have been using, leading his new boss Toto Wolff to confirm that drivers could no longer change them without permission.

Mercedes have played down what happened in Spain, but it was a move Hamilton believes prompted Rosberg to take their rivalry to a new level.

The next race was the tight streets of Monaco, where qualifying was everything.

In the final session, the drivers took their final lap and Rosberg was in front of the timing screens and, more importantly, on the track.

The German stopped at Mirabeau, sliding onto an escape road, which brought out a yellow flag and prevented team-mate Hamilton from improving his lap time.

"Well done," Hamilton said over the radio, but the sarcasm in his voice and body language suggested he was less than impressed - he knew the gloves were off in a rivalry that would end up lasting three seasons and might have him push Rosberg will do so just a week earlier in Spain.

"Bahrain, Nico did one thing, Barcelona one thing and then Nico took it to another level in Monaco, which definitely made it very difficult for us, for me," Hamilton said.Sky Sportsat the end of the 2014 season.

2016: A star is born

In the third of those three seasons, Spain saw the most explosive transfers between Hamilton and Rosberg as they once again battled for the world championship.

After passing Hamilton in turn one, Rosberg accidentally entered a slower engine mode, allowing Hamilton to close quickly on the exit of turn three.

Rosberg aggressively closed the door, but it was too late - Hamilton was already inside.

The result - both Mercedes withdrew from the race.

In some ways, that wasn't the biggest story of the day - it was an 18-year-old named Max Verstappen.

A few days earlier, Red Bull shocked the F1 world by ditching then-driver Danil Kvyat to promote Verstappen from Toro Rosso (now AlphaTauri) to the senior team alongside Daniel Ricciardo in his second F1 season.

While Mercedes held crisis talks to manage their drivers, Red Bull took the pieces with Ricciardo taking the lead, followed by Verstappen.

A puncture to Ricciardo ruled him out of a thrilling race for victory between Red Bull and Ferrari, but his team-mate became F1's youngest ever winner - aged 18 years and 227 days - in his first race for the team.

This was the first in a growing list of victories for Verstappen and Red Bull, many of which came at the expense of Mercedes.

Verstappen will return to Spain this weekend already looking for his 40th Grand Prix win.

Apart from the power that will come from the young Dutchman, this was the beginning of the end for Ricciardo's first association with Red Bull.

The Australian left at the end of 2018, unwilling to be Verstappen's number 2, and now sits off the grid in 2023 as Red Bull's third driver.

2017: A new era in F1

2017 was the beginning of F1 as we know it today, with cars getting bigger and faster and the sport opening up more in the hands of new owners, Liberty Media.

It was also a season that welcomed Ferrari back into the title race, with Sebastian Vettel taking on Hamilton's Mercedes, with Rosberg retiring from the game.

Both world champions were supported by Finnish teammates in the form of Kimi Raikkonen and Valtteri Bottas, and they came into contact at the first corner as they battled Verstappen for third place.

Verstappen and Raikkonen retired, much to the dismay of a young fan who was seen on television crying in the stands.

Hamilton and Vettel would continue racing, going wheel to wheel for the first time that season aggressively but fairly.

Although initially closely contested between the two rivals, Hamilton would eventually overtake Vettel to win on a pole - just as the season unfolded.

The televised disappointment of the Ferrari fans at the start of the race probably hinted at how the Tifosi would feel as the year progressed.

The boy's day didn't end in tears, however, as he met Raikkonen in the paddock later that Sunday for a hug and a hat.

This was also the first weekend that the top three drivers were interviewed in front of the grid fans after qualifying, giving the fans what they wanted.

This moment symbolized the direction of Liberty Media and the new era of F1 - this is a sport for the fans and they can get closer to the drivers than ever before.

2021: No more “Mr. Good boy'

As we learned in 2016, the thorn in Mercedes' side was always going to be Max Verstappen in his Red Bull, and in 2021 that was the case.

In a title battle for all time, Mercedes' Hamilton defended his championship from young contender Verstappen.

Turn one saw on pole position Hamilton lost out to an aggressive Verstappen, who dove on the inside, forcing Hamilton to give way to avoid an incident.

Having played the percentage of the game, Hamilton made the most of Mercedes' strategy, holding off Verstappen once again and catching the Dutchman to overtake him in the closing laps in a thrilling race.

This Grand Prix highlighted the contrasting styles of the two protagonists that season - the uncompromising Verstappen and the more patient Hamilton.

The opening corner was the last time the pair faced each other on similar tires before the storming clash at the start of the British Grand Prix saw the relationship between the pair and their teams go from strained to intense.

Hamilton may have escaped the intimidation of the circuit in Spain. However, this run was decisive as the two heavyweights clashed in the opening rounds of this legendary title fight.

2022: All's Fair in Love and War

Last year's Spanish Grand Prix painted a picture of what the season would be like, but it was also part of the plot that causes tension between Red Bull's drivers to this day.

Ferrari's Charles Leclerc led Verstappen into the first corner after starting from pole position. He looked on course for victory when teammate Carlos Sainz and championship rival Verstappen hit the gravel at turn four.

Leclerc, however, often failed to make a break throughout the year due to a fault or reliability issue. In the case of this race, it was an engine failure and his championship campaign took a huge hit.

Further back, Verstappen struggled to get past Mercedes' George Russell with a DRS problem, leading to some fruity language on the radio before finally passing the Briton.

But he still didn't have the lead.

Verstappen's Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez took the lead and was asked to let Verstappen pass, which the Mexican called "unfair".

Verstappen won convincingly despite the odds, while Leclerc and Ferrari lamented a missed opportunity – a fair summation of not only this race but the season as a whole.

However, perhaps Perez's displeasure with the team led to THAT moment in Monaco a few days later.

Perez took pole position and the win, but Verstappen is said to feel the Mexican crashed in qualifying to secure pole position (just as Rosberg had done to Hamilton six years earlier).

This season, the pair are seemingly in a two-horse race and given their history, Verstappen wants nothing more than to beat Perez.

Find out the next twist in each driver's story as the Spanish Grand Prix gives them their fortune this weekend live on Sky Sports F1.

Live Sky Sports F1 Spanish Grand Prix

Thursday June 1st
14:00: Drivers' Press Conference

Friday, June 2
8:50am: F3 practice
10.00am: Exercised F2
12:00: Spanish GP Practice 1 (session starts at 12:30)
13:55: Qualifying F3
14.50: Qualifying F2
3.45pm: Spanish GP second practice (session starts at 4pm)
17:15: The F1 Show: Spain

Saturday June 3rd
9:25: F3 Sprint
11.15am: Spanish GP third practice (session starts at 11.30am)
13:10: Corrida F2
14:15: Qualifiers for the Spanish GP
15:00: Qualification for the Spanish GP
6:15 p.m.: IndyCar - Detroit Grand Prix Qualifying

Sunday, June 4
8:50: F3 Feature Race
10:20: F2 Feature Race
12:30 pm: Grand Prix Sunday Preparation for the Spanish GP
2pm: SPANISH GRAND PRIX
16:00: Spanish GP reaction under the checkered flag
5:45 PM: Indy NXT - Detroit GP
20h: IndyCar - GP de Detroit

Will Red Bull F1 2023's winning streak continue at the Spanish GP? Catch all the action live on Sky Sports F1 from June 2-4.Get Sky Sports