European Grand Prix preview

Such has been the excitement about Michael Schumacher being lined up to replace the injured Felipe Massa at Ferrari, that people have talked of little else through Formula 1’s summer break in anticipation of this weekend’s European Grand Prix around the streets of Valencia.

However, while the dream comeback from the German legend is no more (at least for now in any case), the little matter of the 2009 title fight is ready to take centre stage again – a battle which had been shaping up quite nicely ahead of the month-long recess.

Indeed the most important element of the Valencia weekend must surely be whether Brawn GP, without the benefit of any in-season testing and restricted development time due to the mandatory factory shut-downs since Hungary, has been able to right the wrongs that have seen its astounding early season form drop away dramatically.

Team principal and technical brain Ross Brawn has become convinced that one of the modifications that they made somewhere along the line has not only not helped the BGP 001s’ progress but actually been detrimental to the car’s ability to get heat into the tyres.

This problem has thus hampered the level of grip that had been so strong for Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello through those opening rounds when they ran away from their rivals and Button opened out a 32-point lead over the now pacesetting Red Bull drivers.


Spanish eyes on Paris

For the Spanish home crowd, however, they may feel they have had to put up with a far bigger headache over the long four-week break.

For them the biggest news through the early part of August was not so much whether Schumacher would be racing again for the first time since he went into retirement at the end of the 2006 season. It wasn’t even the anger that his replacement was Italian Luca Badoer rather than Spaniard Marc Gene from Ferrari’s test team. It wasn’t even that the home fans would have a very promising teenager of their own to cheer on in Toro Rosso’s Jaime Alguersuari.

It was the fact that the driver who has single-handedly made car racing more of a national passion than two-wheeled sport, Fernando Alonso, might be missing from action.

The FIA Court of Appeal meets on Monday to decide whether to uphold the race ban imposed by Hungarian GP stewards on Renault, and thus Alonso, for sending the Spaniard’s car out from his pit stop with a wheel that wasn’t attached correctly and which duly fell off further around the lap.

The home fans, and most certainly the race organisers, will heave a sigh of relief if the ban is lifted – and so will Romain Grosjean. For it appears, if it is, he will make his F1 race debut in place of Nelson Piquet Jr who was fired by the team after Hungary.


McLaren’s big boost

One team that definitely has no concerns over its participation on the Mediterranean cost is McLaren, who after making a dismal start to the season has made massive strides in the past two races, with Lewis Hamilton winning last time out at the Hungaroring before the summer break.

The Woking squad naturally therefore will come to Spain with high hopes, most notably as its MP4-24s appear to have the best KERS in the field.

World champion Hamilton used it to supreme effect in Hungary and is sure to see it as the most vital part of his armoury in Sunday’s race.

The importance of KERS and its role in the race will be exacerbated by the lack of potential overtaking spots around this harbourside street circuit.

Last year’s maiden grand prix there demonstrated that passing is all but impossible, so those teams whose drivers are pedalling cars equipped with it will make the most of the 60bhp extra that it provides to make up places away from the race’s standing start.

This will then be a major set-back for those they blast past, as they will find themselves trapped behind cars that could easily be slower than them, save for the ability to rocket away out of any slow corner onto an appreciable straight several times per lap.

One glance at the circuit diagram is sufficient to reveal that KERS will be a real benefit out of turn five, especially out of turn 10 and, if there is any of the lap’s provision of extra horses remaining, out of the final corner onto the curving start/finish straight.

To counter this, expect the teams that don’t run KERS, including championship protagonists Red Bull and Brawn, to consider qualifying really light, just to ensure they are firstly ahead of all of the KERS-equipped cars on the grid and, secondly, to help them be light enough to make the best possible getaway from the grid.

Some teams will no doubt split their tactics, to hedge their bets.

But what odds would you give on Barrichello accepting being put on a different race strategy than team-mate Button, especially after what happened on the championship’s previous visit to Spain when a piece of thinking on the hoof at the first round of pit stops led to Button being moved to what turned out to be a race-winning two-stop strategy?


Second impressions count

While the Valencia street circuit around the port area from which the city hosted the America’s Cup yachting was slated last year, many of the sport’s insiders came away last August feeling that the temporary venue was more than a little lacking in glamour.

Let’s hope that something has been to dress the place up.

It will never be Monaco, without the rich history and indeed the topography to do that, but it didn’t look as though it would take that much effort from the organisers to make it look less, well, distressed urban.

Source: ITV