<> at Estadio Santiago Bernabeu on May 23, 2015 in Madrid, Spain.

After finally making their way home from Russia after the first four flay away races of the 2017 Championship season, the Formula One paddock are back on familiar ground at the Circuit de Catalunya for this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona, round five of the season.

The Circuit de Catalunya is a venue that is well known all teams participating in the pinnacle of Motorsports as it is widely used by all as a testing venue in the pre season and after a very intense opening four flyaway events of the season, everyone is looking forward to returning to Europe where most will be boasting some major upgrades for Sunday's race.

This weekend will actually celebrate the 47th Spanish Grand Prix, the country having had only seven Grand Prix drivers in the history of the World Championship before 1999, but since then we have had several more, Fernando Alonso, Pedro de la Rosa, Jaime Alguersuari, Carlos Sainz, Marc Gene and Roberto Merhi.  Out of these only two still race in the series, Alonso and Sainz, and only one has ever won a race, Alonso, or a Championship, Alonso. Of the rest, two have stood on the rostrum, Pedro de la Rosa, who is one of just a handful of drivers to score points in their debut race, and finished second in the 2006 Hungarian Grand Prix, and Alfonso de Portago, the most notorious, who also finished second  in the 1956 British Grand Prix.

Alfonso was a tremendous all-round sportsman who raced in the Grand National, was an international swimmer and created the Spanish Olympic bobsleigh team. He actually competed in only six Grand Prix events, and in four of those, he shared the car with another driver, which is why he didn't get full points for that second place and finished his F1 career with just 4 points to his credit. During the 1955 British GP he was actually thrown from his Ferrari while racing at 140 km/h when he lost control on a patch of oil. He was hospitalized with a broken leg as a result.

Sadly, together with his co-driver Edmund Nelson, Alfonso was killed on May 12 1957 in a crash during the Mille Miglia, a race he was apprehensive about competing in to begin with as he believed it was too dangerous as it was impossible to know every corner, even with a co-driver (navigator) over the 1,000 mile course. A tyre blew on his Ferrari, when he was in third place, along a straight road section, causing it to spin into the crowd watching along the highway. He was racing at roughly 150 mph when the tyre blew, killing not only himself and his co-driver, but nine spectators, five of which were children.

Of the other seven early Spanish Grand Prix drivers, only three actually scored points of which Francesco Godia was the most successful with two fourth places in 1956. The final point scorer was Luis Perez Sala with sixth place in the 1989 British Grand Prix.

Now Spain is more widely known for the talents of Mr Fernando Alonso, who has two world titles to his credit and this year will turn up behind the wheel of a Mclaren Honda, which has not be performing anywhere near his expectations over the past two seasons.

“After a run of difficult races for us, I'm not sure what we can expect from this weekend,” Alonso said. “We're expecting some various new parts – which we bring to every race – but we can't really focus too much on performance until we have solved our reliability issues. That's always our focus.”

The Circuit de Catalunya is the fifth home of the Grand Prix in Spain with only France having had more venues in Europe. Three of the Spanish Grand Prix locations were in Barcelona, the initial Pedralbes circuit used in '51 and '54 was formed of streets within the city. Montjuich Park in the south of the city was the venue for four GPs between '69 and '75 and the present circuit, to the north of Barcelona, was opened in 1991. Other Grand Prix have been held in Jarama, to the north of Madrid, nine Grand Prix from '68 to '81, and Jerez in Andalucia.

There has been a multitude of changes to the track over the years, with a new chicane placed just before the final turn in 2007, however while this took away from the very challenging fast final turn to some degree, it also increased overtaking down the main straight to some degree. Drivers need to take care at turn nine. This 210km/h (130mph) right-hander rises over a crest, meaning the car becomes light just as the drivers are re-applying the power ahead of the long straight down to turn 10. There were several high-speed spins at this corner during winter testing this year so fans can expect to see more drama there this coming weekend.

Ferrari is the overall winner here with 12 victories to their credit while McLaren and Williams both have eight apiece. Lotus has seven, Mercedes four and Red Bull 3. Prost and Jaguar have also been very successful here, but in terms of their founders, Alain Prost and Jackie Stewart, who have both won three times in Spain. Jackie's wins were in succession, including from start to finish in 1970, while Alain did the same thing in 1988. Nigel Mansell has been as successful in Spain, and he formed a one-two with Prost for Ferrari in 1990. Michael Schumacher holds the record here with six wins to his name while home hero Fernando Alonso has won here twice.

Stewart holds one of the biggest winning margins ever, with a two lap win over Bruce McLaren at Montjuich in 1969, while the second smallest winning margin ever was the 0.014 that separated Ayrton Senna from Nigel Mansell at Jerez in 1986. But remember also the 1981 Spanish Grand Prix at Jarama when Gilles Villeneuve brilliantly controlled the pack for lap after lap to lead home a top five covered by just 1.24 seconds? And of course, no one can forget last year's race when the two battling Mercedes took each other out of race winning contention allowing the Red Bull Racing contender of Max Verstappen to just sail past and race on to secure his maiden victory at just 18 years of age.

Of this year's contenders, Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton has only won here once, in 2014 and Sebastian Vettel won for Red Bull back in 2011. Kimi Raikkonen has actually taken two victories here, one in 05 for McLaren and again in 08 for Ferrari. Daniel Ricciardo has never won a race in Spain and Max Verstappen has last year's win to his credit.

While we have seen Mercedes and Red Bull struggling somewhat in the first four events, others have flourished, such as Ferrari. After winning the season opener in Australia, Sebastian Vettel went on to win again in Bahrain while Hamilton has only won once, the Chinese GP and his teammate Valtteri Bottas, took victory last time out in Russia. Fans can expect to see yet another tight battle at the front as the top teams go head to head at a venue they all know like the back of their hands.

For all the facts and figures on the Spanish Grand Prix, click here.