European Grand Prix : Preview

European Grand Prix Circuit

Formula 1 comes back to Europe for its 9th round as the European Grand Prix in Valencia, Spain. The Valencia Street Circuit utilizes the city’s port area which also includes the 140 m long swing bridge and the roads surrounding it with some other roads specially built for the European Grand Prix . The European Grand Prix circuit is once again a high speed circuit with all the three sectors having their equal share of high speed patches and the fastest and longest being sector 2. The cranes and other various port side infrastructures give you a feel of perfect Hollywood movie. Though the European Grand Prix Circuit tries to do a Monte Carlo circuit it lacks very much in the glamour part with Monte Carlo having the edge by making it a celebrity event. The European circuit being a street circuit it does not offer much of overtaking though there are various high speed points. So the qualification does play a very important part in tracks like these where overtaking is not very much possible.

Reaching the half-way point of the championships with the first quarter being dominated by the red bulls while the following one saw a comeback by the McLaren and Ferrari beginning to get back in the track just now and reaching the mid – point with the car manufacturers fighting out for the fastest car will be looking up to their mid-year changes. And with Ferrari looking to be good with a third place in Canada; Alonso would love to impress the home crowd who are in midst of a huge financial crisis with the other European countries and another ray of hope for celebration in case the Spanish football team do not perform well in the World Cup. While Hamilton will be aiming at a hat trick here and would love to provide English sports a boost ahead of their World Cup match against Germany later that Sunday. While the German Mercedes outfit would like to start an impressive run once they are back in Europe.

The Mercedes, Red Bull, Williams and Force India would be hoping that their F ducts come out well in the practice sessions with all the team saying that once they fare well with the ducts they will go on with it. While Red Bull says they will not make a replacement to the Red Bull of Vettel which had gearbox problem avoiding him of a grid penalty thus. The same problem had affected his race in Canada where he struggled for his fourth position.

McLaren who have shown that they have the fastest car now on track will have to face stiff competition from the Red Bulls who are expecting their F duct to work out and also the Ferrari and the Mercedes who have made significant improvements to their cars that will race in Spain this weekend.

The Red Bulls, Alonso and Schumacher have done well in the first race in Span this year and would want to repeat the same feat. Massa who missed last year’s race due to an injury won the race in 2008 and with his strong timings in Canada sans the misfortune of taking a nudge from Liuzzi in the starting part of the race and later on from Schumi will be a strong contender. His fearless driving mixed with the improved car of Ferrari should provide some magic with hopefully luck also on his side.

However pundits are predicting an advantage to the British outfit with Lewis handing over the victory to Barrichello with him making a last minute call to pits and finished second. This time he would like to be more patient and let his team to work on the strategy part which they are good at (as seen in the last race at Canada).

Coming to the battle of Red Bulls, Webber will have an edge over Vettel as he always does well in street circuits and will be banking on his precision filled driving skills along with a fast car to bring him back to the top. Massa, Alonso and Kubica are also good at such races, with Alonso banking on the home team to get after him; Massa and Kubica will be banking on their fearless driving at European Grand Prix Circuit.

Paul Di Resta will be back on track for Force India with the team testing their F ducts which hopefully seemed to work out this time.

Lotus Racing will be celebrating their 500th Grand Prix race this weekend at European Grand Prix Circuit and celebrations are geared up with their car having a print of 500 on the rear wing. It will be a great race for them who started in this business long back in 1956.

On this occasion team principle Tony Fernandes was thrilled and said it would be fantastic to celebrate Colin Chapman’s history and thanked Clive and his mother Hazel and all the people who have helped shape the Lotus legend.They would be hoping to continue their improved performance and not be treated as the lower teams like HRT and Virgin.

The HRT Racing team for which India’s Karun Chandhok would like to impress the home crowd with their second home race of the season where last time back home both the cars failed to finish.Ferrari believe that the circuit will suit their car better and so does Mercedes who are hoping for a better result and have put Schumi’s poor race dues to a car problem and a poor tyre choice.

Williams will be introducing their blown rear wing and other aerodynamic upgrades this race and they would be hoping to end their dismal run.

As said earlier Valencia European Grand Prix Circuit has never been known for producing an exciting race with no overtaking opportunities but the speed circuit does provide a chance for the engineers to brainstorm themselves. They have to compromise on the straight-line speed versus down force which is a real challenge. And since it isn’t a permanent circuit, you can expect track evolution to play a similarly key role to the one it played in Canada. It will be tough to guess how its behavior as the track has only two races in its kitty.

Bridgestone will again have the responsibility of the tyres and will be bringing the super- soft compound and medium at European Grand Prix Circuit. Their motorsport tyre development director Hirohide Hamashima, says that as the surface will be more aggressive to the tyres than in Montreal so we do not expect the same challenge for teams to get maximum performance from the medium and super soft compounds and as this year’s race is being held two months in advance than the previous years it might not effect that significantly.

Overall an exciting race can not be expected out of Valencia European Grand Prix Circuit with qualification playing a major role. Lets see how the Friday’s Practice session turns out and hope Spain can conduct their second race of the year properly leaving behind their huge Financial Crisis and may be gain something out of the race!!And do not forget to watch for live updates on our Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/F1Keeda

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