FIA F2

Catalunya: Racing Engineering preview

The second meeting of the 2007 GP2 series, to be held this weekend at Montmelo , is a special one as the races at the Catalonian track will be the first of the two events scheduled this season in Spain so motivation will be at a high for the team to ...

Published: May 9, 2007, 11:51 PM

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The second meeting of the 2007 GP2 series, to be held this weekend at Montmelo , is a special one as the races at the Catalonian track will be the first of the two events scheduled this season in Spain so motivation will be at a high for the team to perform at its best on home soil and in front of their fans and their main sponsors, Spanish companies Repsol and Telefonica .

At Montmelo the 2007 GP2 start its long European season paired with the F1 schedule after starting three weeks ago in Bahrain. There mechanical problems, with externally supplied components, caused problems in the practice sessions with the result that both the Racing Engineering drivers, Javier Villa and Sergio Jimen ez, couldn't achieve the results that their race pace showed were within their reach. The target at the Catalonian track will therefore be to look from the start for a good qualifying result in order to allow Javi and Sergio to fight for good positions in the races.

The two young Racing Engineering drivers arrive at Montmelo in a positive frame of mind based on some solid reasons. For Villa it will be a race in front of his fans, with the extra motivation that means as a large number of them are expected to arrive from his homeland of Asturias to cheer him from the always packed Montmelo grandstands. Further Javi expects to make good use of the experience gained here last year, when he finished both races, to be in a position to race in the top half of the field. Equally for Sergio this will be one of the few chances he will have this year to race on a track he already knows from his season in Spanish F3, so this time he won't need to waste the brief practice time available in GP2 weekends learning the track, and instead he can immediately focus on setting the car up in order to push for the best possible lap times and show again both his potential and his continued progress at the wheel of the GP2 Dallara.

The circuit of Montmelo is one of the best known tracks to the GP2 teams as it is usually the site for some of the preseason practice sessions. The main change this year at the track located near Barcelona is the new "chicane" built on its final part where before there was a double downhill right hander heading to the main straight. This is a really important layout change regarding car setup as the long and fast corner is now a slow sequence that will allow the cars to enter the main straight far closer, as now the reduced downforce caused by the car in front will be of far less significance, allowing for more overtaking chances at the end of the straight. In turn this will mean that top speed will be really crucial and in order to get as much as possible without compromising the car balance it will be very important to work hard with the different setup possibilities allowed by the new aerodynamic package of the GP2 Dallara.

-credit: racing engineering

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