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Australian Grand Prix Preview: AT&T Williams |
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Tuesday, 11 March 2008 |
Formula One roars back into action this weekend for the start of the
2008 FIA World Championship at Melbourne’s picturesque Albert Park
circuit in Victoria, Australia. The AT&T Williams team will return
to the race track with Nico Rosberg, who will be entering his third
season as a race driver having agreed a long term contract with the
team over the winter. Kazuki Nakajima will line up alongside Rosberg
and will be making his Formula One season debut following promotion
from his role as the team’s 2007 test driver and a successful campaign
in GP2 last year.
The new driver line-up will be piloting AT&T Williams’ 2008
championship contender, the FW30. Spring-boarding off the FW29’s
engineering principles, the FW30 is a clear progression of a thoroughly
tested platform and has proved to be consistent over 30 car days and
10,435 kilometres of testing over the winter. Its true test, however,
will only come once the flag drops for Sunday’s race.
Nico Rosberg
I
travelled out to Australia early for a driver day in Sydney with RBS;
it’s now an annual event and is always one of the best sponsor trips.
Looking ahead to the race, I’m looking forward to getting to Melbourne
and getting the season underway, and there’s a good chance that we will
be stronger at Albert Park this year than we were last year.
Saturday’s
qualifying results will provide the moment of truth for all of the
teams and will reveal testing bluffs and low fuel runs. I believe that
we will have a solid race this weekend and will look to bring home some
points. Reliability-wise, it will be challenging to achieve our target
of 100% this season, but we’re in good shape.
Kazuki Nakajima
It’s
amazing that the first race of the season is finally here and I’m
obviously really excited to get my debut year in Formula One underway.
We’ve been working hard over winter testing and done a lot of good
preparation work so the team is looking forward to racing again.
Because
Melbourne is a street circuit, it will be quite slippery when we do our
initial runs, but it should have settled down by Saturday. The track is
a good combination of slow and medium speed corners, with some fast
ones thrown in as well. It’s also looking like it will be a hot race,
which will suit the car. I feel like I’ve been testing for quite a long
time now, so it’ll be good to actually race!
Sam Michael, Technical Director, Williams F1
Heading
off to the first race of the year is always an exciting time for
everyone. There is a great buzz among the teams before the racing
starts again because it allows us to see where our performance lies
relative to each other. From the last race in 2007 to the first race in
2008 testing provides some indication, but not the solid reference
point that racing offers.
With regards to the track, Melbourne
is a low grip street circuit so special attention is required when it
comes to the mechanical set-up of the car to get the best out of the
Bridgestone tyres. Nico and Kazuki are both well prepared going into
the season ahead, as is the car, which has covered thousands of
kilometres on the test track over the winter to ensure strong race
reliability
Albert Park, Melbourne
The
5.303km Albert Park track is one of the few street circuits on the
calendar and therefore used by everyday road traffic when Formula One
isn’t in town. As a result, drivers are faced with minimal grip levels
during the race weekend’s opening sessions, combined with the recent
ban on traction control, the circuit’s limited run-off areas may claim
some unprecedented victims over the weekend before grip levels improve
as the cars lay rubber.
On track, Albert Park blends a testing
mix of short straights (on which the drivers will reach speeds in
excess of 300km/h and spend 70% of the lap at full throttle),
interspersed with 16 slow and medium speed corners, which will demand
nearly 3,500 gear changes during the race.
Torque to power the
cars out of the corners, a balanced set-up, a robust gearbox and
stability under braking are therefore all essential components to
achieve a successful lap during qualifying and a strong result at the
Australian Grand Prix.
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