Europe 2011 - GP Preview - HRT F1 Cosworth

Hispania Racing will be on home soil for the second time this season for the European Grand Prix held at the Valencia Street Circuit. For the fourth time in history this unique track, which is situated by the water’s edge, will host the event.

Valencia is a stop-and-go track with a lot of long high speed straights, such as the straight between turns 10 and 12 where cars reach top speeds, ending with heavy braking slow speed corners meaning that good traction and good braking stability are important. Grip is also an issue at the Valencia Street Circuit since the streets are normally open to general traffic resulting in low grip levels, particularly at the beginning of the weekend. This lack of grip offline makes overtaking difficult.

Pirelli have chosen their medium and supersoft compounds as prime and option tyres respectively for this grand prix.

Colin Kolles, Hispania Racing Team Principal: “I always enjoy Valencia. Both the city, with its atmosphere, and the track, which is a street circuit, are very special. Valencia is basically our second home grand prix which is very important for the team. I hope that the team continues improving and can prolong the positive trend”.

“It seems that the car is more competitive on tracks with similar characteristics to Valencia. Traction will be very important here; therefore we have worked in this direction. We will have some new parts on the car and hope to further reduce the gap to the teams in front of us”.

Narain Karthikeyan: “I like being in Spain because, when the weather is hot, it reminds of back home in India, the people are also very friendly here and know they’re Formula 1 which is always nice. I certainly hope that the home race advantage helps the team to take their performance to the next level”.

“I have never raced in Valencia before so I don’t really know what to expect but you always need to concentrate 110% because the smallest mistake puts you in the wall. It’s not a traditional street circuit as the roads are quite wide and the average speeds are not as slow as they are in Monaco”.

“Qualifying will play a crucial role as it does for every race; it’s always nice to qualify as far ahead as possible. Hopefully, with the DRS this year, overtaking should be a possibility during the race though. It was also good to see that the updates worked well in Canada; we have made a big step forward in terms of performance and lap times and are now much closer to our nearest rivals. We have a lot of work ahead, the step forward in Canada was a very good one, and we need to capitalise on that and keep the momentum going as the season progresses”.

Vitantonio Liuzzi: “The atmosphere of the race in Valencia is fantastic, the crowd is really committed and passionate and the city is beautiful, it all adds up to one magnificent grand prix. It’s always special to race in front of your home crowd, I’m sure it will be a great weekend with a lot of support from our home fans, especially after achieving our best result in Montreal”.

“It’s a difficult and technical circuit. It’s not an easy task to set up the car and the track is really demanding on the tyres. Overtaking has been difficult previously here but with the DRS this year it should be much easier. Qualifying will be very important, as always in Formula 1, but with the DRS there will be opportunities to improve on your position”.

“Everything is moving in the right direction, we’re always moving forward, there’s still a long way to go but we’re certainly going in the right direction. We can’t sit back now; we want more and have to push for it. Our targets are quite high and if we want to achieve them we can’t afford to relax”.