AT&T Williams F1

About This Video

Want to know what it feels like to drive around the glamorous streets of Monaco or high speed Silverstone in a Formula One car? Well now you can with our flyby track simulations, courtesy of our partner, Allianz.

The short video previews, which go live on the site on the Tuesday prior to every Grand Prix weekend, will guide you around the 18 circuits that feature on this year's calendar. Seen from within the cockpit, the flybys offer an insight into how an F1 driver navigates his way round some of the fastest and most challenging tracks in the world.

Round ten of the season takes Formula One to Germany and the evocative Hockenheimring. Many would argue that the major facelift in 2002 left the 2.8 mile track a bland expanse of tarmac. The passage through the heart of the Rhine forest may have been re-engineered, but that which remains still demands exacting standards of driving and engineering precision.

Like so many of the tracks on the calendar, the circuit is a conundrum, one at which the drivers and their engineers spend most of the weekend searching for an often elusive set-up which can accommodate the low and medium speed corners as well as the high speed straights. Measuring 1.25km, the sweeping Parabolica is the longest straight of the lap and will see the engines rev at full throttle for 14 seconds at speeds of 315kp/h. With the cars running at full throttle for up to 65% of each lap, Hockenheim ranks only second to Monza in the speed stakes and demands engine durability.

Located in the southern part of Germany, ambient temperatures are predictably high and promote track temperatures in excess of 50°C. As a result, the thermal loads placed on the tyres, particularly the rears, will be especially high at this race, while the physical pressures exerted on the drivers are as equally demanding.