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Team
and Driver race preview (selected
team quotes, for a full team and driver preview click on the team name) Renault (
Fernando Alonso, Giancarlo Fisichella ) Fernando Alonso
It will be a close fight – McLaren will be fast, like
they are everywhere, but Magny-Cours has been a good circuit for Renault. Last year, I got pole and had a strong battle with Ferrari
for the win. This year, we are going there with a better car, and we will expect to be competitive. Will it be enough to win? I
don't know. It definitely won't be easy – I think the battle at the front will be much tougher this year than in 2004. Full
Team and Driver Preview Back to Top McLaren (
Kimi Raikkonen, Juan Pablo Montoya ) MARTIN WHITMARSH, CEO FORMULA ONE, TEAM McLAREN
MERCEDES
"The Team McLaren Mercedes team is fully focused on challenging for our fourth race win of the season at the French
Grand Prix this weekend. Development and preparatory work has continued apace back at base and on the test track in Jerez and we are
looking forward to getting back to the racing in France. In the main we have seen an exciting first half to the season, with close
and intense battles on track, which we are looking to continue over the remaining nine races." Full
Team and Driver Preview Back to Top Ferrari (
Michael Schumacher, Rubens Barrichello ) Not yet available Full Team and Driver Preview Back
to Top Williams
BMW ( Mark Webber, Nick Heidfeld ) Sam Michael (Technical Director, WilliamsF1):
"We return to Europe
next week for the start of the second half of the season, which begins in Magny-Cours. The team has been testing at Jerez, in Spain,
last week with Antonio Pizzonia and Nick Heidfeld in an effort to further improve the FW27 and continue tyre testing for Michelin.
For Magny-Cours, we will have some aerodynamic improvements that are part of our on-going development programme to bring performance
to the car. Some parts are more obvious, some not.
Magny-Cours has three high speed areas, the first section of the lap and
the two chicanes, as well as some slow and medium speed corners. It is traditionally a very smooth circuit which has an interesting
end to the lap because the track creates a good line into the pit lane. This means that time lost in the pit lane is low. The tarmac
at Magny-Cours is more dependent on temperature than normal which means lap times vary significantly during the day. Strategy will
be interesting in Magny-Cours because of the pit lane time and typically high tyre degradation that we see at Magny-Cours." Full
Team and Driver Preview Back to Top Toyota (
Jarno Trulli, Ralf Schumacher ) Mike Gascoyne - Technical Director Chassis:
"This is the start of the most intense month we
have seen in F1, with events in France, Britain, Germany and Hungary throughout July. Such time constraints add extra pressure on to
the entire team. The race personnel barely have time to find their feet as they move around Europe, and of course the staff at the
factory in Cologne must work at quadruple the rate to develop our TF105. We are prepared for this challenge, though, and will not
get complacent about our level of performance. We have a car that is capable of finishing every race on the podium, so we have to
head to the French Grand Prix with that in mind. Magny-Cours will see us revert back to a standard set-up with fairly high levels of
downforce. There are two medium-high speed chicanes which demand a good change of direction from the car. We have to balance the
wing level to make that possible while retaining good straightline speed into the Adelaide hairpin. It's not easy to pass at
Magny-Cours, so we have to again look at qualifying in the top 6 or 8 and then implement a strong race strategy to make up further
positions during the pit stops. Podiums are by no means out of the question and they should be our target as we head into the second
half of this gruelling 19-race season." Full
Team and Driver Preview Back to Top Red Bull (
David Coulthard, Christian Klein ) Not yet available Full
Team and Driver Preview Back to Top Sauber ( Jacques Villeneuve, Felipe Massa ) Willy Rampf
(Technical Director):
"After the two North American races with medium downforce levels, Magny-Cours brings us back to the
high downforce tracks. Overall it is an interesting circuit from a technical point of view. It offers a combination of low speed
corners, where traction and rear tyre degradation are the main issues to consider, and high speed corners where car balance can make
the difference. The track temperatures can change a lot during the day and exert an influence on grip and balance. The evaluation of
the tyre degradation will be crucial to define the best race strategy. To find, in a handful of laps, on Friday a good set-up that
minimises the tyre degradation is challenging for both the drivers and engineers. As for the public, one interesting overtaking spot
to watch is the Adelaide hairpin at the end of the back straight, where the drivers are braking from 320 kmh to 50 kmh in about 3
seconds." Full Team
and Driver Preview Back to Top Jordan ( Tiago Monteiro, Narain Karthikeyan ) Adrian
Burgess, Sporting Director
“We have been working really hard in between the last two fly-aways and the next pair of
doubleheaders. We tested the new car last week at Barcelona for 2 days. Most the signs were very favourable. However, we do have
some issues we would like to resolve before we race the car. Therefore, in Magny-Cours, we will stay with the EJ15 and we will
decide after France if we want to race the new car at Silverstone or not. One of our objectives is to keep our very good reliability
record and this is why we will not introduce the new car until we are satisfied with its reliability.” Full
Team and Driver Preview Back to Top Minardi
( Christijan Albers, Patrick Freisacher ) Not yet available Back to Top BAR Honda ( Jenson Button, Takuma Sato ) GIL DE FERRAN, SPORTING DIRECTOR
"We came
back from F1's North American tour quite encouraged by the performance of our car. This past week we have been testing in Jerez for
three days evaluating tyres, aerodynamic developments and mechanical changes in view of the coming races in France and England.
Given the fact that our last race in high downforce configuration was at the Nürburgring, and our performance there left something
to be desired, much of our efforts in testing were concentrated on improving the aero specification in this configuration. We are
hopeful that we will be fighting at the sharp end of the field again in Magny Cours." Full
Team and Driver Preview Back to Top Bridgestone Hiroshi Yasukawa, Director of Motorsport, said: “It will be good to get to France this weekend and,
for the sake of the sport and the fans, have a great race. From our point of view, Bridgestone and its teams had a successful trip
across the Atlantic but we do need to maintain our momentum and keep the results coming now that we have returned to Europe. Our
technical personnel have been busy both on and off track working on our latest developments and I look forward to seeing their
efforts in action this weekend.” Full Bridgestone Preview Back to Top Michelin Pierre Dupasquier, Michelin
motorsport director
"The track surface at Magny-Cours tends to be more abrasive than many on which we race during the course of the
season. The layout might be fairly conventional, but the ultra- quick right-hander at Estoril and the Adelaide hairpin provide a
couple of significant talking points.
“For a tyre manufacturer, the biggest challenge is to produce a compound capable of
coping with the high loads generated through Estoril. It might only account for five per cent of the lap, but it dictates our range
of options for the weekend. If it wasn't there, we would be able to run softer tyres." Full Michelin Preview
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