FIA F1 - Driver Preview Comments For Spanish GP

With last weekend’s Turkish race hosted at Istanbul Park on the Asian side of the Bosphorous, the European leg of the Formula One season kicks off for real in Barcelona next weekend. The Circuit de Catalunya is a venue the teams know very well from testing, although racing there represents a completely different challenge. The drivers and senior team personnel discuss their prospects…

Kamui Kobayashi, Sauber 2010 Qualifying - 10th, 2010 Race - 12th “Every team and driver knows the circuit in Barcelona extremely well from winter testing. Our car seemed to be good there in February and March. For the next Grand Prix weekend it will be important to focus on the set-up of our car with the new parts, and we will have to make sure the update results in an improvement in qualifying and the race. The track offers an interesting combination of high speed, medium speed and low speed corners. The last sector, which is comparatively slow, could be challenging for us. In the past overtaking was particularly difficult on that circuit, but I believe the Drag Reduction System will help to make it an exciting Grand Prix. I feel very much at home using the adjustable rear wing. I’m happy with the system and I think it will be a real benefit for the Spanish Grand Prix’s audience.”

Sergio Perez, Sauber 2010 Qualifying - n/a, 2010 Race - n/a “I’m looking forward to the weekend in Barcelona very much. I have been quite unlucky in the previous races and I really have the feeling the Spanish Grand Prix is when this will change. I strongly believe I will score points there. I am very motivated and I like the Barcelona circuit a lot. Also I always did well there. In Turkey we weren’t able to show our potential and I hope this changes in Spain and, to begin with, we are better in qualifying. We will bring an update for the car and I trust it will meet our expectations.”

James Key, Sauber technical director “Barcelona is familiar to everyone. We tested there twice over the winter, but I’m sure in hotter conditions we have to re-evaluate how the tyres are working on the track. It’s another circuit which is quite hard on tyres, and turn three in particular is hard on the left hand side of the car. It’s going to be a case of looking at tyre degradation and durability on Friday, and trying to come to some conclusions. Barcelona is a relatively high speed track, so one which should be quite reasonable for our car. After the race performance in Istanbul that could be good for us, but we need to improve our qualifying performance. We’ll have a new, quite significant aero package on the car, which will be a completely new front wing, updates to the front and rear brake ducts, new bodywork, new devices around the floor leading edge and under the chassis, and we’ll be testing the new exhaust system again. We’ll also be continuing our work on the mechanical update we had in Istanbul, which proved to be positive. So it will be interesting to see how this works. If it works well it should give us a good few tenths of a second improvement in lap time. Our goal is to continue our good race form, to try to improve qualifying and finish as high in the points as possible.”

Lewis Hamilton, McLaren 2010 Qualifying - 3rd, 2010 Race - 14th “Barcelona has traditionally been the start of Formula One’s European season, and we’re optimistic that we’ll once again be back in the fight for the big points this weekend. I think we didn’t meet our full potential in Turkey last week, and I’m hoping that the MP4-26 will be able to make a step forward if our initial testing on Friday goes successfully. It will be interesting to see how the DRS affects the racing. Typically, it’s been very tough to overtake at Barcelona because the best opportunity - into the first corner - is too fast to make a pass stick. It’s always been too hard to really get alongside another driver into the corner. But we benefited from two great races in China and Turkey because the DRS area led directly into a heavy braking zone, meaning it was possible to get two bites of the cherry: using the slipstream and using the braking zone. In Barcelona, it’s likely to be less clear-cut.”

Jenson Button, McLaren 2010 Qualifying - 5th, 2010 Race - 5th “After a relatively low-key race for the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes team in Turkey, I think we’re headed to Spain and Monaco feeling more positive about getting the most from our planned upgrades. Turkey showed us that we are still on a learning curve with these Pirelli tyres, and while in Turkey it was a hard lesson to lose position due to strategy, I think it’s given us a lot of valuable lessons in how to work as a team, how to devise our strategy and how to get the most from the tyres out on the track. I think Barcelona will be interesting. Personally, it will feel strange to go back to a track where we had a difficult winter and to drive a car that will hopefully allow us to once again race at the front. As always, the Circuit de Catalunya is a very unforgiving track - it’s a track that brings out the best in cars. It’s important to get another strong result under our belts, particularly as we head straight to Monte-Carlo, so maintaining momentum will be vital.”

Martin Whitmarsh, McLaren team principal “The Spanish Grand Prix at Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya has become a staple on the calendar and is a fantastic sporting festival for the many thousands of passionate fans who flock to the track throughout the weekend. I’m particularly interested to see how the 2010 rule-changes affect Sunday’s grand prix. We’ve seen how DRS and KERS Hybrid have influenced the racing so far this season, so we’ll see how things progress at Barcelona given that the Spanish Grand Prix has previously shown limited opportunities for overtaking. As we saw in Istanbul last week, there is always risk inherent in bringing any upgrade to the circuit - particularly following the absence of testing. For Barcelona, we’re planning to re-introduce some of the proposed upgrades initially scheduled for introduction in Istanbul. Once again, however, they’ll only be introduced if their initial deployment on Friday proves successful.”

Michael Schumacher, Mercedes 2010 Qualifying - 6th, 2010 Race - 4th "The Spanish Grand Prix is traditionally where it really feels like the European season gets underway and holds a lot of good memories for me. Of course, we know the Circuit de Catalunya very well from testing, but it will be interesting to see the effect of KERS, the DRS and the Pirelli tyres on a track where overtaking is always difficult. While I was not happy with my weekend in Turkey, there have been clear signs of improvements for us as a team, which obviously push and re-boost my motivation even more. It's more than encouraging to see that the hard work of the team is starting to pay off. We are all determined to make progress."

Nico Rosberg, Mercedes 2010 Qualifying - 8th, 2010 Race - 13th "Our upward trend is clear for all to see, even though we still have a little more progress to make in race configuration compared to qualifying. I'm looking forward to Barcelona, where we will also be introducing an update package for the car, and I'm excited to see how it works. We showed a good level of performance at the final winter test on this circuit, and hopefully we can translate that into a strong result this weekend."

Ross Brawn, Mercedes team principal "The last two races in Turkey and China have proved that we can be quick in certain conditions but we need to focus on achieving that level of performance consistently over the entire race weekend. We will have an aerodynamic development package for the Spanish Grand Prix, along with refinements to our suspension package, which should help to find the consistency in the car that we are looking for. The Circuit de Catalunya is such a familiar venue to the teams that we should be able to maximise our practice time to focus on this, and I hope to see another step forward and a positive weekend."

Norbert Haug, Vice-President, Mercedes-Benz Motorsport "The Spanish Grand Prix at the Circuit de Catalunya is a serious yardstick for cars and drivers every year. While the layout of the circuit does not look particularly special at first glance, this track is in fact very special indeed: a car that can perform well here will perform everywhere. Like most other teams, we will introduce a number of technical upgrades at this fifth Grand Prix of the season. Our target is to continue the trend that we began two races ago in China, and to further improve our car."

Heikki Kovalainen, Lotus 2010 Qualifying - 20th, 2010 Race - DNF “Barcelona is one of the tracks where we all know every single centimetre of the whole lap. We test there so much that it usually ends up with the whole grid having teammates side by side but it’s the kind of circuit where you can’t hide anything at all. If you are quick there you can be quick everywhere as it’s demanding aerodynamically, and if you struggle there you could have problems at a variety of circuits. A good lap kind of flows until you reach the last three corners which are a bit fiddly. The first sector is probably the best - T1 is a quick chicane and then turns three, four, seven and nine are all fast. You need good high-speed stability there and good grip to get the best out of the car and when you hook it all up and put in a quick time it’s pretty rewarding.”

Jarno Trulli, Lotus 2010 Qualifying - 18th, 2010 Race - 17th “It's always good to get back to Spain. I've spent so much time at the Barcelona circuit it’s like a second home to me and the whole team and even though I must have completed thousands of kms around there it's still a good challenge. It's very technical and that puts demands on the car's aero - a good aero package is one of the keys to being quick. Looking at the circuit itself I particularly like T9 - it’s one of the quicker corners in the whole calendar and one that rewards confidence and good balance. There’s not a lot of overtaking chances around the lap and we’ll see if the DRS plays the same role in Spain that it did in Turkey - if it does then tracks like Barcelona will suddenly have overtaking chances and that’s got to be good for the fans.”