European Grand Prix Debrief

Posted on Tuesday 24 Jul 2007

Rain had the most significant influence on the European Grand Prix at the Nürburgring this weekend, precipitating Nico Rosberg’s early DNF and contributing to a thrilling race for Alex which eventually saw him finish in fourth place.

On Friday, both drivers brought on some mechanical set up changes which had been validated at the Spa test two weeks prior; both Alex & Nico regarded the new components as an improvement and the changes were carried through the weekend.

The Friday practice sessions were plagued by rain and the session programmes were modified to account for this eventuality, with three sets of tyres used per car in the morning and only one new set used in the wet afternoon session. The drivers finished the day in 7th (Rosberg) & 12th (Wurz).

Overnight the Saturday engine changes were made and Nico had a new albeit scheduled engine installation; some of the morning was session was thus spent on systems checks after the various updates and changes on the cars.

In the afternoon qualifying session, both drivers hoped to progress to Q3 based on Friday and Saturday morning form, but in Q2 the cars finished the session in 11th and 12th place respectively. While the aim is always to qualify as high as possible, this outcome did however leave the strategists with more latitude in terms of fuel plans for Sunday’s race.

Going to the grid on Sunday, the pitwall were conscious of the impending weather approximately 25 minutes prior to the race start. With the rain arriving a lap into the race, both cars were called in, but in his out lap on standard wets (as opposed to full wets), Nico spun out of the race after struggling to maintain grip as the circuit was deluged with water. With his anti-stall device automatically cutting the engine ignition after regulation ten seconds for safety reasons, there was no prospect of Nico regaining the track.

In the meantime, Alex completed a full lap on dry tyres before boxing to change for full wets, but a lap later on lap 4 after the safety car was deployed, the race was suspended in light of the worsening track conditions.

Alex re-started in P8 and quickly progressed to seventh, and, by use of judicious strategy, claimed two more positions by timing the swap back to dry tyres on lap 11. Alex did make a final stop on lap 53 to move back to standard wets, but by this time had consolidated his hold on P4 and spent the final few laps strongly challenging Mark Webber for the last step on the podium, but ultimately Alex ran out of laps and finished in a strong fourth position.

Systems and Reliability

Both cars ran reliably though all sessions with the exception of a front brake vibration on Alex’s car in qualifying, which was subsequently resolved.

Next Events

The team is testing this week for three days at Jerez, with Kazuki Nakajima on 24th & 25th and Alex Wurz on 26th.

Sam Michael, Technical Director:

“Alex used his long experience to good effect in difficult conditions this weekend and claiming five points was a good result for the team in variable conditions. We are now beginning the last part of our programme of bringing updates and developments to the FW29 that will give Alex and Nico a stronger platform to fight from in forthcoming GPs.”