FIA F2

Monza: Javier Villa preview

The historic Italian track at Monza will be the finale for Javier Villa in this, his maiden season, in the GP2 series. This first season has been both a very valuable experience and a huge challenge for the young Spaniard. Going from Spanish F3 to ...

Edited: Dec 11, 2006, 4:15 AM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

The historic Italian track at Monza will be the finale for Javier Villa in this, his maiden season, in the GP2 series.

This first season has been both a very valuable experience and a huge challenge for the young Spaniard. Going from Spanish F3 to GP2 was a quantum leap for Villa's career but Javi has shown that this risky move has been really worthwhile.

However it's still too early to start a season summary with two races yet to be run this weekend at Monza so let's wait to calmly remember all of Javi's experiences and achievements during a year that at times has been so hard but also so full of hope and promise.

Right now the focus is on finishing the learning process started at the beginning of April at the Spanish track of Valencia, and further to do it in style. Villa and his team, Racing Engineering, arrive at the final race meeting of the season with the good feelings carried over from Istanbul's Sunday race. There Javi set some very fast lap times in the sprint race with the more radical setup his team put in his car overnight. A setup that, crucially, gave the driver a really consistent car-behavior throughout the race.

This car will be the starting point to work from during the 30 minute free practice on Friday morning at Monza. The Italian track is one of the true motorsport temples still in use and, despite the several chicanes that are now part of its design, it still keeps a big part of its old soul. It's still a real speed track, where the GP2 cars will easily reach more than 300 kms/h at the end of the main straight, just before braking hard for the first "Variante". There is another chicane before the famous "Lesmo" corners and a third one at the beginning of the straight that heads to the legendary "Parabolica", these are the only obstacles that stop the modern single-seaters from going almost flat out for nearly all the 6 kilometers of each lap.

It is at this location, with plenty of the best memories in motorsport history, where Javier Villa will put an end to his first season in the GP2 series, and his target is to do it by obtaining the best result of the year.

-credit: www.javiervilla.com

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article Monza: Alexandre Premat preview

Next article Monza: Friday practice times

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

Barcelona set to host IndyCar race in 2027 under multi-year deal

IndyCar

Indy IndyCar 5 h

Barcelona set to host IndyCar race in 2027 under multi-year deal

Winners and losers from a Chase-altering NASCAR Cup race at Phoenix

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Phoenix II

7 h

Winners and losers from a Chase-altering NASCAR Cup race at Phoenix

Heart of Racing rules Valkyrie GTP step next year ‘too soon’ for IMSA standout Barrichello

IMSA

IMSA IMSA 7 h

Heart of Racing rules Valkyrie GTP step next year ‘too soon’ for IMSA standout Barrichello

Sergio Perez: Debut Cadillac season "without a doubt one of my best years"

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

United States GP

7 h

Sergio Perez: Debut Cadillac season "without a doubt one of my best years"

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts