British GP: Sauber preview

With now 13 points in their pockets, Team Sauber Petronas heads for Silverstone and the British Grand Prix as the 'summer season' of the 2005 FIA Formula One World Championship continues with another back-to-back race.

Willy Rampf (Technical Director):

"Silverstone is dominated by its high-speed corners where car balance and stability are mainly dictated by the aerodynamics of the car. The first corner, Copse, is very quick and leads to the sweeps of Maggots and Becketts where a car must have high-speed stability and the ability to change direction cleanly and quickly. This part of the track highlights any deficiency in the chassis set-up."

"This high-speed balance has to be combined with good traction out of Club, Abbey and the last two corners from the complex. Overall the braking energy here is low, but the nature of the track surface leads to relatively high tyre degradation, so we tend to run hard tyres here."

Jacques Villeneuve (142 GPs, 6 points 2005):

"Silverstone is a very different track from the others we race on. It is quite high-speed, but most of that speed is in corners rather than on straights. Because of that we have to use hard tyres. The weather is also unpredictable: it can be cold, hot or raining, you just don't know what to expect."

"Unlike most of the other teams we didn't test there this year so it will be hard to find the right set-up. Therefore I have no idea what to expect overall, or whether Silverstone will suit our car, but sometimes you get nice surprises."

Felipe Massa (43 GPs, 7 points 2005):

"I love Silverstone, and the challenge that it represents. To me it is a driver's circuit, up there with Spa or Suzuka. It has some very high-speed sections, and the first part of the track is especially nice."

"These are very important corners which influence the lap time a great deal; if you have too much understeer it can be horrible there and will grain the front tyres so much they are destroyed before the end of the lap, but equally you don't want the car too pointy there, with oversteer. So good set-up and handling balance are really important. Stowe and Club are good corners too, but again any understeer there is bad news."

"I always seem to go well at Silverstone, and after our very encouraging test at Jerez at the end of June I really hope that the new parts we will have on the car will let me keep up that record this weekend."

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