Every year since 1991 the Spanish Grand Prix has been held at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, and, as sadly we saw again on Sunday, it rarely delivers an exciting race. There have been exceptions, especially when it has rained, as in 1996, when Michael Schumacher produced a masterclass in a dog of a Ferrari to win by 45 seconds and inspire a watching Stirling Moss to say, “That wasn’t a race; that was a demonstration of brilliance; the man is in a class of his own; there’s never been a driver so clear of the field in ability; it was one of the most fantastic demonstrations of skill I’ve ever seen.” In his pomp Moss had raced not only Juan Manuel Fangio but also Jim Clark, let us not forget.

There have been other good races at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, but I will mention just one more, and again inclement weather intervened in a positive way. In 1991, the first time a grand prix was held there, on a wet-then-dry-then-wet-then-dry track, Nigel Mansell won brilliantly, and who among us cannot summon to our mind’s eye the image of his Williams wheel to wheel with Ayrton Senna’s McLaren, the two cars just inches apart, as they hurtled down the main straight together? But too many Spanish Grands Prix at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya have been just a tad dull.

A Spanish Grand Prix was first held 110 years ago, at Guadarrama, near Madrid, a 103km (64-mile) road course, then not again until 10 years later, at Sitges-Terramar, which was the fourth purpose-built racetrack ever constructed (after Brooklands, Indianapolis and Monza) and, like those three, included steep banking. It is now home to a chicken farm, which is probably why Jeremy Clarkson thought it amusing to drive a car there on The Grand Tour. From 1926 the Spanish Grand Prix was held, on and off, at Lasarte, near San Sebastian, but after the 1935 race there, in which Rudolf Caracciola, Luigi Fagioli and Manfred von Brauchitsch delivered a Mercedes-Benz 1-2-3, racing in Spain was abruptly ended by civil war. There were only two more Spanish Grands Prix between then and 1967, in 1951 and 1954, both at Pedralbes, in Barcelona, which was that almost unheard-of thing until the arrival in 2021 of the Jeddah Corniche circuit in Saudi Arabia: a superfast street circuit.

More recently Spanish Formula 1 races have been held in Jerez and Valencia, albeit not always classified as Spanish Grands Prix, and in the 1970s the race was held at either Jarama or Montjuïch, another superfast street circuit in Barcelona. Indeed, if you walk it today, as I have, it is difficult to believe that Formula 1 cars raced flat-out there four times (1969, 1971, 1973 and 1975). Undoubtedly, it was too dangerous. Emerson Fittipaldi won there for Lotus in 1973, but in 1975, by then a McLaren man, he did not race there at all. I asked him about it a few years ago.