Monaco Team and Driver Previews

Monaco is one of the most precious and unique circuits of Formula 1 calendar. As a street circuit it’s a combination of slow and twisty corners. All teams come here with a special package and mechanical setup is very important for success since all the teams use their maximum downforce available. It will be interesting to see how 2009 cars will behave at this circuits since they don’t have last years downforce levels thanks to the new regulations.

Brawn GP comes this race as favorites as they were the fastest at Barcelona circuit’s last sector which demonstrates Monaco characteristics. RedBull is expected to have their new Double-Decker diffuser solution at this grand prix. Ferrari is eying their first podium after a successfull demonstration of their upgrades at Spain Grand Prix.

Spanish Grand Prix Tech File

The Grand Prix circuit near Barcelona is one that every F1 team knows well from the hundreds of kilometres of testing carried out there over the winter. Few venues offer such a variety of medium and high-speed corners and it is widely acknowledged as the definitive aero circuit that provides a stern test of an F1 car. With few big braking zones and so many high-speed corners, overtaking remains extremely difficult and a good qualifying performance and sensible strategy are paramount for a successful weekend.

Aerodynamics

Aerodynamic efficiency is always a key factor at Barcelona, although the introduction of the chicane at the end of the lap in recent years has replaced on of the most critical high-speed parts of the lap and means the track is not as demanding as it once was. Even so, the circuit remains the ultimate test of a car’s aero package and teams will run with high downforce levels to ensure competitiveness over the whole lap.

Spanish Grand Prix, Team and Driver official previews

After four back to back fly-away races of 2009 season, Formula 1 is finally back to Europe starting with Spanish Grand Prix this week. Most of the teams are planning to bring major updates to this track and it will be interesting to see who did the best job. All ten teams have done testing here in March, but the pecking order may change as all the teams brought updates to their cars during past four races.

Ferrari, Brawn, BMW and Torro Rosso teams are excpected to bring major updates to this event. Ferrari will have it’s first double decker diffuser solution and a lighter chasis for Raikkonen while BMW will have a lighter chasis and a lot of aerodynamic updates. They also ruled out running KERS at Spanish and Monaco grand prix’s to be able to focus on evaluating updates. On the other hand, Brawn Gp will introduce their first update to the car this season.

Bahrain Team Previews

After such a tremendous race at China only one week later we are already counting back for Bahrain Grand Prix. Most of the drivers arrived Bahrain early on to get used to the time difference and hot weather conditions.

Toyota, BMW and Ferrari have already tested their 2009 contenders here during winter testing and collected valuable data for the race. Other teams will start their preparations at Friday’s first practice session. Brawn, Toyota and Red Bull teams come here as favorites, whereas Ferrari, McLaren and Renault will try to show catch up. With only one week break after China, big updates are not expected. It will be interesting to see who will use KERS here, after we saw only three cars used KERS at Chinese Grand Prix.

Q & A with Martin Whitmarsh

Q. Is Ron Dennis’s announcement related in anyway to the events of the Australian and Malaysian Grands Prix?

Martin Whitmarsh: Ron has said that it is his decision and it is not related to an F1 issue. He has decided that it is time to move to a new challenge, and that is what he has done.

Q. Did he not do that when he handed over the team principal role to you?

MW: The first phase of that was to relinquish his role as team principal, but he was still CEO and he was still my boss at that time. So it was a further step of what he announced in March.