British GP Prost preview

Prost Acer
British Grand Prix
Silverstone

After its own home race in Magny-Cours two weeks ago (1st July) the Prost Acer Team is now heading to the Silverstone circuit, where the British Grand Prix, 11th round of the F1 2001 World Championship will be held on July 15th. Silverstone is one of the Formula One Teams' favourite destination for testing, and also their home track for most of them.

The two Prost Acer drivers know the Silverstone circuit very well. Jean Alesi will hit this weekend the 195th Grand Prix of his career and is about to run his 12th Silverstone Grand Prix. He finished third times second there in 94, 95 and 97.

Luciano Burti, after having won several Brazilian karting championships, went to England, in 1996, to keep developing his racing career. Doing so, the Brazilian driver accumulated a large experience of the British racetracks, Silverstone among them : he ran there nine times, going on five of them to the podium and tested there several times in a Formula One car.

After the disappointing outcome of the French Grand Prix, Jean Alesi and Luciano Burti, as well as the whole Prost Acer team, look forward to march again for positive results, as obtained in the previous races. Henri Durand comments on the Silverstone track and on the team's objectives for this race:

Henri Durand - Prost Grand Prix Technical Director :

"Silverstone is a very technical track. The challenging combination between twisty parts and high-speed sections emphasizes the qualities and weaknesses of a chassis. It is particularly demanding on aerodynamic efficiency and on tyres. Once again we should see a fierce battle between the two tyre manufacturers at the British Grand Prix.

Our team will bring not bring any new parts for this race : having experienced some difficulties in finding a good balance for our cars at the French Grand Prix, we chose to focus on this matter in preparation for the Silverstone race. We have been analysing thoroughly the datas collected at Magny-Cours, and we will approach the upcoming week-end in a slightly different way as far as the cars set-up is concerned. Hopefully, thanks to our good knowledge of the Silverstone track, where we have done a great amount of testing before, and to the work done during the past week, we will be able to make the most of our package : the AP04 chassis has evolved a lot and has proved it can be very competitive, and the Michelin tyres have shown astonishing performances since the start of the season. Our objective is now to make them work perfectly together on a regular basis."

-Prost