Fernando Alonso: "The Nürburgring is a good place to go racing"

You had high hopes for the British Grand Prix, but things didn't work out in the race...We thought that Silverstone would suit the car, but after qualifying we realised that we were not as competitive as we had hoped. In the race I made a poor start and got stuck behind Heidfeld who was heavy on fuel, which ended my chance of finishing in the points. I still had some fun battles, especially with Lewis [Hamilton], but I prefer to be fighting at the front.

Are you optimistic that the team can make up the performance gap to the leaders soon?The position we are in at the moment is similar to last year, but this time all the teams are much closer together and so it's more difficult to take a big step forward. If you can find three of four tenths with an upgrade, it can make a huge difference and put you five or six places higher up the grid. That's what the team is looking for – that magic component which gives us a big boost, but we know it's not easy to find.

It has been a couple of years since you've raced at the Nürburgring, are you looking forward to going back there?It's not the most exciting circuit of the year, but it's a good place to go racing as the track has a bit of everything and so the car has to work well in every part of the lap. There are fast corners where you need a lot of downforce and slow corners where braking stability and good traction are important. We have some new developments for this race, which will hopefully improve our situation and allow us to get some points in the race, but we know all the other teams will have improved as well. We also need to work on our starts because if you lose ground on the first lap it's very difficult to recover.

Nelson Piquet: "I'm looking forward to driving a Formula One car at the Nürburgring"

Looking back to Silverstone, how do you rate your weekend? The end result was disappointing although I think I managed to get the most from the race as our one-stop strategy worked well. Unfortunately my problems started in qualifying as I had a technical issue and had to abort my final run in Q2, which meant I started the race from 14th. Starting so far back makes it difficult to score points, but I still pushed hard and made up some ground in the race. Overall it was a pretty frustrating weekend for the team.

Will this be the first time you've driven a Formula One car at the Nürburgring?Yes, because last year the German Grand Prix was at Hockenheim where I finished second behind Lewis Hamilton. However, driving at the Nürburgring won't be a new experience for me as I raced there a couple of times in GP2 and I've always gone well and enjoyed it. I'm definitely looking forward to driving there in my Formula One car.

What are your expectations for the weekend?The team have been working hard since Silverstone with some upgrades, mainly to the aero which should give us a boost. After Silverstone I said that it was down to me to improve in qualifying and so I'd love to make it into the top ten, which would give me a realistic chance of scoring my first points of the year. You also need to keep an eye on the weather at the Nürburgring as it's near the mountains and conditions change very quickly, a bit like in Spa. We can probably expect at least a couple of showers over the weekend.

Pat Symonds: "Finishing the season with the third fastest car still has to be the target"

Pat, how do you look back on the team's performance at the last race at Silverstone?We had certainly hoped for a better result. In free practice we were more or less in our usual position, but in the third part of qualifying we did not perform at the level we expected to. Then we had a poor start to the race and spent a lot of time stuck in traffic, which made it very difficult to recover. However, when we did have some clean air the car's pace was about where we expected it to be and so while the result wasn't good enough, it's perhaps not as bad as it appeared.

Where is the team concentrating its efforts to improve competitiveness?As always we are concentrating our attention on aero as it's still the fundamental element that brings the most speed to the car. But rather than just putting parts on the car, we're also working on the usability of that aero: exploring the aero mapping so that we get the most from the car in every corner.

What upgrades can we expect for the Nürburgring? New developments are introduced at every race and we've got a reasonable upgrade for the Nürburgring, which includes a further version of the new front wing that we evaluated at Silverstone. We're also hoping to have some new rear wheel fairings and an updated engine cover as well as some mechanical upgrades.

It's been a couple of years since we raced at the Nürburgring, does that change your approach or preparation at all? Not really because preparation for a race always involves looking back over many years. We also have to remember that we are dealing with quite a different car this year and so our knowledge of how we ran last year's car is not as relevant as it has been in the past. One area we will look back on is tyre behaviour because even with the switch from grooved to slick tyres, we can see if the track causes graining or has particularly high wear rates.

Is the Nürburgring a technically challenging circuit? It's a circuit with a bit of everything: fast corners, slow corners, chicanes and heavy braking areas. We therefore use a very typical set-up as we have to compromise through the speed range, as we do for most circuits.

What are the realistic targets in the second half of the season?We are in a similar position to last year when we said that we wanted to end the season with the third fastest car. Doing that this year is probably more difficult as the middle bunch of teams is much tighter and we have limitations on where we can develop. But finishing the season with the third fastest car still has to be the target, although where that leaves us in the championship standings is difficult to predict.

Tech File: Nürburgring

The Nürburgring has a reputation for being a ‘complete' circuit in the sense that it includes a wide variety of corners. There are high-speed sections, medium-speed chicanes, and some very slow corners with high traction demands. The R29 will have to meet all of these challenges this weekend. Overtaking is difficult but possible into the first corner and the chicane at turns 13 and 14. However, the weather is a constant concern and no matter what the season, rain and cool conditions are an ever-present threat in the Eifel mountains.

Aerodynamics The Nürburgring demands some of the highest downforce levels of the season, not only for the numerous high and medium-speed corners, but also to maintain good stability under heavy braking for the first corner and the slow chicane of turns 13 and 14.

Fernando explains: "The left-right chicane of turns 13 and 14 is probably the best overtaking opportunity as it's one of the biggest braking zones of the lap. If you are following another car closely, you can pick up a good slipstream on the approach and make a lunge down the inside. We take it at about 100 km/h in second gear and you need to be aggressive with the curbs to straight-line the chicane as much as possible and carry speed through the corner."

Chassis balance Corners such as turns 5/6, 8/9 and 10/11 in particular demand a neutral handling balance to avoid compromising the optimum line through the second corner in the sequence, and the engineers will often work through the weekend to dial out understeer in the medium-speed corners.

A quick, responsive change of direction is required in both the slow-speed section at the start of the lap, and through the quicker corners. Mechanical grip is particularly important through turns 1 to 4, but cannot be achieved at the expense of aerodynamic performance around the rest of the lap.

Fernando explains: "The run through turns 1 to 4 is not very exciting for the drivers, but we spend a lot of time in them and that means that any mistake is likely to be very costly, especially in qualifying. We need to be precise with our braking and keep the car under control all the time as too much understeer, oversteer or a missed apex will put you out of shape for the following corners. The car balance is never perfect at such low speeds either, so we are always fighting understeer in the very slow corners, and a nervous rear end when we accelerate away."

Tyres Tyre performance will, as always, be a critical performance parameter for all teams this weekend with Bridgestone providing the super-soft and medium compounds from its 2009 range. Ambient conditions will play a role in determining which compound is the preferred tyre for the race as we often experience cool temperatures at the Nürburgring.

BrakesWear on the brakes is not a major concern. None of the braking zones are particularly severe and there is no reason to think that wear levels on the discs and pads should be abnormally high as a result.

Engine The Nürburgring is not a circuit that presents the engines with any extreme challenges, and its overall impact is further reduced by the fact that the circuit is situated at altitude, some 500m above sea level. This has the effect of reducing engine power by approximately 5%, while also reducing loads on certain engine components such as the pistons.

The engine is at full throttle for just over 64% of the lap – a value slightly above the season average of approximately 62%. The longest single period at full throttle barely exceeds ten seconds, so the main challenge for the engine team is ensuring strong performance from low revs so the engine launches well out of the slow corners, particularly turn 7 which leads onto the uphill drag to turn 10.

Nelson explains: "We approach turn 7 downhill in seventh gear at almost 300km/h before braking and downshifting to third for the hairpin. It's really important to stay online and hit the apex through this corner so that you can apply the throttle early on the exit to carry as much speed on the long drag back up the hill towards the high-speed chicane of turns 8 and 9."

The circuit includes a number of elevation changes, but none are sudden enough to cause the engine systems any concern. The only note of caution is finding the best line through some of the bumpier corners, and particularly the chicane, to avoid spending too much time on the rev limiter, which is potentially damaging for the engine.

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