What to expect at Magny-Cours this weekend

This weekend sees the F1 circus travel to Magny-Cours for the final time as the French GP seeks a new venue. With the championship so close at the moment this could be a pivotal round, which could point us in the direction on how the rest of the championship may turn out.

Despite not being the most popular venue mainly due to the remote location of the circuit the track layout itself isn’t too bad. The Adelaide hairpin always provides wheel-to-wheel action every year. Hamilton will have to make the most of that corner this year if he is to fight back from his 10-place grid penalty.

So who is likely to win the race this year?

Can BMW Sauber repeat their heroics of Montreal?

Can Renault surprise on their home turf?

Ferrari

Ferrari comes into the event as firm favourites after winning 5 of the last 7 races held here at Magny-Cours. The current car also works extremely well at tracks like these. The Ferrari loves fast flowing corners. The Magny-Cours track surface is notorious for being extremely smooth and again the Ferrari likes this a lot. The car doesn’t cope very well with bumps, which will not a headache for them here. In last season’s race they obliterated the opposition despite struggling in the 3 previous races, it shows how strong they always are at Magny-Cours. In fact out of all the circuits Magny-Cours is up there with Barcelona in terms of tracks where they perform brilliantly beat and hardly ever get beaten. Out of the drivers it is extremely close though (which one hell of an improvement over the Schumacher era). Massa is on a fantastic run of form whilst Raikkonen hasn’t scored a single point in the last two races.

In 2007 Massa got pole, in the race Raikkonen managed to sneak the win. This is a track both drivers like and Raikkonen will want to get his championship challenge back on track whilst Massa will want the fast gathering momentum in his championship charge to continue. It’s close to call but Massa can always pull a lap together so I expect him to get pole, which is a huge advantage in Magny-Cours. Raikkonen may well need to do the same strategy to win as he did in 2007 by running heavier than his team mate and hoping he can leap him. Massa has shown though how much faster he is this season so even this may not be enough to beat his determined teammate. He needs to come up with something special this weekend, no doubt about that. Ferrari will strive to make sure that they don’t have a coming together on the track.

Mclaren

Mclaren are very much chasing Ferrari this weekend. Whereas Magny-Cours has always been a strong track for Ferrari, Magny-Cours has always been a weak track for Mclaren. In fact since F1 has been racing at Magny-Cours(1991) Mclaren have only won 1 French GP, which was with David Coulthard in 2000. This season Mclaren have been working very hard to catch up with Ferrari on circuits with fast and flowing corners such as Magny-Cours. The race in Turkey definitely showed that Mclaren have made gains in this area with Hamilton challenging Massa for victory despite being forced to stop 3 times. I definitely think their pace will be close enough to give Ferrari a slight headache even if it isn’t as huge one.

The main problem for Mclaren is their main challenger Lewis Hamilton is handicapped with his 10-place grid penalty. Hamilton will be able to make up a few positions and get some points but racing to the front will be far too big an ask as there is only one overtaking place on the circuit(Adelaide Hairipin) and in F1 it is very hard for these cars to follow closely anyway. When he comes up to the BMWs his progress is likely to be halted. That’s if he survives being in the F1 scrum that is the midfield in the opening laps where there are often incidents.

With the mistake in Canada still on his mind he can’t afford to be too rash in his overtaking and make another big error otherwise his deficit in the championship risks being a double-digit figure. 4 or 5 points will do nicely for him this weekend and ensure he doesn’t lose too much ground in the fight. He can’t afford to take radical risks in my opinion.

Heikki Kovalainen will be Mclaren’s main challenger to the Ferraris up front but despite being very unlucky so far I have seen solid pace from him but not the really fast raw pace that he needs in order to challenge for victories. He will need to up his game in my opinion this weekend if he wants to even think about challenging Raikkonen and Massa for the win. On the other hand with Hamilton handicapped and out of Heikki’s way he could see this as an opportunity to show Mclaren how good he can be and punch above his weight. Neutrals this weekend may well be hoping for that.

Overall on a circuit that better suits Ferrari and with Hamilton docked 10 places from wherever he qualifies this really has to be considered a damage limitation exercise for Mclaren. If they could come away from the race with 10 points or more than in my opinion that would be a great result for them as they move onto the next few races where they should perform better.

BMW Sauber

These are great times for BMW Sauber, after winning their first GP in Canada and with Robert Kubica now leading the world championships team spirit is very high. However I predict BMW Sauber will get a mighty reality check at this race. Before the Canadian GP the BMW was definitely slipping away from the pace of the Mclaren and Ferrari. Circumstances intervened in Canada and they took their opportunity and won the race. Here I expect them to be considerably off the pace of Mclaren and Ferrari. Their car doesn’t perform brilliantly at tracks like Magny-Cours the track will show that they are still losing out to the top 2 teams in key areas.

The task for Robert Kubica is simply to hold onto to his championship lead. With Hamilton 10 places back on the grid 4^th is very realistic. If he gets 4^thand Massa doesn’t win he will still go to Silverstone with the championship lead. BMW should be a bit stronger at Silverstone and then stronger still at Hockenheim and Budapest. However I don’t expect this weekend to be easy for them. It will be a reminder that they still have some way to go until they challenge for the top step regularly. I think like Mclaren this weekend is also damage limitation for BMW Sauber

Who could upset the odds this weekend

My tip for the surprise of the weekend is going to be Renault. They are bringing a whole range of upgrades to their car this weekend and as Magny-Cours is their home race you can expect them to be punching above their race. The car looked quick in Canada and it should be even better here. In fact I wouldn’t rule Alonso repeating the feat he achieved in Spain and sticking his Renault on the front row of the grid. However don’t expect him to keep it there in the race but a good points haul should be on the cards and team really need that at the moment as they only have 9 championship points currently.

Final Conclusion

This should be an interesting race weekend but I think the key point will mainly be the battle of the Ferrari drivers at the front as they are always so strong at this circuit. I don’t expect them to win by half a minute like they did last season. Their opponents will be closer but not close enough to give the Ferraris a big fright. Hamilton will provide an entertaining drive to pick up solid points and avoid huge damage to his championship and Alonso may well appear where he is not wanted.

1. Massa 2. Raikkonen 3. Kovalainen