Ted Kravitz is a notable absentee from Formula 1 television coverage this weekend.
The pit lane reporter has been a staple of the Sky Sports coverage of the sport ever since it won the rights to broadcast it from the 2012 season. And during the 11 years since, Kravitz has only been absent on a handful of occasions despite rotation being regular among other pundits.
He regularly pops up with valuable nuggets of information throughout the weekend's live coverage and also presents his Notebook programme after qualifying and the race. But that will not be happening this weekend with Kravitz not in Spain.
Instead, he is taking some time off to travel for a more personal reason than usual. "I'm not going to be in Barcelona," Kravitz said. "I will be going on a longboat holiday on the Grand Union Canal, so the notebook will return at the Canadian Grand Prix."
That means he will be back involved in the Sky coverage on the weekend of June 17-18, when the F1 circus will have set up its Big Top on Montreal. In Kravitz's absence this weekend, it is business as usual for his colleagues.
During the first practice session on Friday, Martin Brundle was the man with the microphone down in the pit lane. "I haven't been here for ages and ages," he said as the cameras cut down to him stood in front of the Ferrari garage where he provided a Kravitz-esque description of how teams are preparing their grid boxes.
Brundle joked: "I've been promoted into Ted Kravitz's job which I'm very, very excited about." A few minutes later he was back on the microphone to bemoan the lack of action in the pit lane, indicating that the novelty had worn off somewhat already.
He said: "I want my money back, to be honest! There are hardly any cars coming down the pit lane and into the pits. Everything is just pounding round and round. Extraordinary."
Natalie Pinkham and Rachel Brookes have been presenting so far this weekend, with David Croft taking his regular place in the commentary box for the main sessions. The likes of Anthony Davidson and Naomi Schiff could also be heard over the airwaves on Friday.
