In one of the most controversial and incident filled seasons in recent memory Red Bull will look to put their British Grand Prix saga behind them during this weekend’s German Grand Prix from Hockenheim.
Last time out at Silverstone the Milton Keynes based team was once more the centre of attention when Mark Webber had a new front wing removed from his car and given to teammate Sebastian Vettel. With the Australian now fully aware of his place within the hierarchy of his team he proceeded to dominate the race after giving no quarter to his teammate at the first turn. Vettel ended the first lap in the pits with a puncture as Webber led the field for the rest of the day with only the safety car heading him, ironically this gave Vettel the chance to salvage his day and secure six points with a seventh place finish.
Red Bull ended the weekend with 31 points, only one point more than McLaren, from a race that the team should have delivered a crushing one-two such was their superiority. The team have consistently shot themselves in the foot this season and with the summer break ever closer the team know that the next two weekends are crucial with back to back races.
McLaren brought an extensive aerodynamic upgrade to Silverstone that ran only on Friday and while results did not meet expectations Red Bull must be aware that their opponents are exceptionally well placed should the upgrade work either at Hockenheim or the Hungaroring next weekend.
The Hockenheimring Circuit
Lewis Hamilton was the victor at the last race Hockenheim hosted the German Grand Prix. Hamilton dominated en route to winning the title in 2008 even when severely handicapped by a tactical blunder by his McLaren team. Then Toyota driver Timo Glock had a massive crash coming out of the last corner that caused a safety car to be deployed and while the majority of the field pitted Hamilton stayed out. With Nelson Piquet in second Hamilton was spared his blushes by the Brazilian holding up compatriot Felipe Massa and allowing Hamilton to make his pitstop 16 laps from the end and maintain track position before coasting to the finish to win by 5 seconds.
Hockenheim was redeveloped in 2002 with a circuit that lost the vast majority of its former character. Whereas in the past the circuit was one of the fastest and most fearsome visited during the near the current configuration is much slower and more technical. The new layout though has seen some exciting races throughout the field but generally races are dominated by one driver as was the case in 2003 when Juan Pablo Montoya would have lapped the entire field had he not slowed down for the last few laps before winning by over a minute.
Can we expect the unexpected this weekend?
This weekend’s race though promises to be very exciting with poor weather expected for practice and qualifying before cool race day temperatures. There is the possibility of a race weekend similar to Canada with drivers struggling with tyre issues. To illustrate the issue that Bridgestone expect to encounter with tyres they will bring the super soft and the hard compound tyres. If the weekend follows a similar pattern to Canada it should be expected that everyone will qualify on the softer rubber, Red Bull showed in the Montreal race that it is impossible to avoid mass tyre wear on high fuel and the hard tyre. While most races have been single stoppers this year the tyre wear and short pitlane, expected total pitstop times is 18-19 seconds, mean this race could be a two stopper for the majority of the field.
Since the redevelopment this race has not been won from outside the top three on the grid with the pole sitter winning four of the six races. Qualifying is obviously crucially important but if the tyre issue does materialise the race could be won by any of the leading drivers but the favourites will once more be the Red Bull’s, McLaren’s and Alonso.
The home crowd will have a lot of compatriots to cheer on with Germans Sebastian Vettel, Michael Schumacher, Nico Rosberg, Adrian Sutil, Timo Glock and Nico Hülkenberg all competing this weekend. Vettel will obviously be keen to move on from Silverstone but at Mercedes Schumacher will be keen just to show some progress. The seven times champion has struggled on his return to Formula 1 and has been outpaced by teammate Rosberg but a return home could invigorate Schumacher. He still remains the only German to win the world title but those days are becoming a fast fading memory with Schumi just a shadow of his former self. He has struggled all season with slow and medium speed corners and Hockenheim is filled with these so the chances of seeing a fight back are slim but with the team expecting more from recent developments he could challenge for a decent haul of points. Rosberg on the other hand will be keen to add to a promising British race when he finished in third.
Heading into this weekend the top four drivers are separated by 24 points in the title chase so theoretically any of them could leave as title leader but with 25 points for a win changes can rapidly occur and with poor weather for Friday and Saturday expected a “green” race track on Sunday could lead to an exciting race with leading drivers out of position and chasing back through the field.
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