The Track

Yas Marina Circuit is 5.554 meters long and counts 21 corners. Twelve of them bend to the left. Drivers will drive this track anti-clockwise. It’s also called the Arabic Monaco.

The Abu Dhabi races ‘special’ treat is the time of day it will be held. The race will start at daylight, but it shall finish under artificial lights. The best overtaking opportunities this time will be turn 8 and 11. Special aspects of this track are the hotel, which was built over the track between turn 17 and 18 and the pit-exit which flows beneath the track.

Most Expensive

Yas Marina circuit is by far the most expensive track ever built for Formula races, roughly 1 milliard dollars. An entire Island had to be erupted from the sea. Also a hotel was built inside the racetrack. Also the lights around the track took a major part of the price, namely 250 million dollars.

The Schedule

Challenge will be brought live to you by Matthew Weston and Simon Smith. The broadcast will start at 18:45GMT, just in time for qualifying. The race will go green at 19:30GMT. The Sprint series will qualify at 9:00 GMT, with their race starting at 9:45 GMT.

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Click the machinima banner below to go to the video and check out this amazing hotlap with an incredible commentary track by Jack Nicholls.

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What is new?

The last race Silverstone venued, drivers had to take a left turn into Abbey. The tarmac between Abbey and Priory won’t be driven again this year, as Bridge corner was dangerous to motor drivers. Now drivers have to make a fast right turn leading up to a fast, but not really challenging section, ended by the new “Arrowhead” hairpin. It is this corner that probably allows overtaking moves.

Drivers quotes

Michael Pieneman from GRIDLine Racing thinks the new layout is challenging.”At first I thought they had ruined another track, but after  a few laps I noticed that you need to get reaquinted to. It has some extra overtaking places now, and a higher speed comparing to the old section, which results in better racing, because setups need to be adjusted accordingly.”

GRIDLine Boss Stuart Fields had a shorter remark: “ The new lay-out is superb! I love it!“

Round up

All in all, the new layout is not the most challenging aspect of Silverstone, but in general it is a nice new feature, which the drivers appreciate. In a few days we will know who shall be crowned as King of New Silverstone. We will leave you now with a lap around this new track:

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The Track

The Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, named after the famous Canadian driver, is 4,361 meters long and counts a total of
15 corners. Nine of them bend to the right. Saturday’s sprint race counts 35 laps, whilst the Challenge race will be
70 laps long. The Challenge race might not be held on the Saturday prior to the Sprint race, but a final decision
has not been made yet.

The tracks first corner is always a critical point, especially at the start of the race. Lot’s of incidents have happened there in the past. Also the hairpin, turn 10, always seems to provide a lot of action and it is a great  overtaking possibility.

The Race

As stated above, Challenge times have not been decided yet, but the Sprint race will be scheduled at the normal time on Sunday, June 12 at 11:00 GMT.

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The track

The ride through the narrow streets of Monte Carlo is 3.340 metres long which makes it the shortest track on the Calender. The track counts nineteen corners, of which twelve bend to the right. Saturday’s race will feature 78 laps, whilst Sunday’s race will have to complete 39 laps around this challenging track. Saturday’s race will start at  19:30 GMT, Sunday the green falls at

Monaco is a track with some beautifull corner-names. For example: Saint Devote, Mirabeau and La Rascasse. The track also hosts the slowest corner of all tracks this season, namely Loews or also called Grand Hotel. Drivers hardly drive faster then 50 km/h at this point.

Traffic

The biggest issue of Monaco is traffic. A lot of drivers have to fear this in qualifying when a full grid tries to set the fastest lap of the day. On the short Monaco track, you will soon encounter a faster or slower driver, whom can compromise your laptime. Caution is to be taken in qualifying and people need to be more aware of their surroundings as ever.

The Challengers

Predicting the victory becomes more and more difficult, as we have seen a lot of different winners through out the season already. If anyone could win the race, it must be the one that gets the pole position this time. So your’s truly will prohibit himself to decide who might win this race, but let’s himself be flabbergasted by the tremendous qualifying pace that is already shown in free practice. I for one, can’t wait to see this race!

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The Track

The circuit de Catalunya is 4,655 kilometres long and counts fifteen corners.  Ten of them bend to the right. Saturday’s race will count 66 laps, while the race on Sunday will be 33 laps long. Qualifying for Challenge will start at 18:45 GMT, while the Sprint Series will Qualify at 09:00 GMT the next morning.

Overtaking is hard on this track, the only real option is turn 1, which is after the impressive long mainstraight. A few years ago turn 10 was altered to improve overtaking possibilities, but that just worked a little bit. Overtaking is possible there, but it takes a tremendous big hart to try.

The contenders

At the start of the European season, the administration board of GPO has altered the physical behaviour of the cars, which predicts a whole different ball-game from this race on. A challenger for victory will be hard to pronounce in this case, so your’s truly will not try to predict this races outcome. While we saw different racewinners in most of the races, no one can tell if someone finally succeeds in netting a string of victories this time. Don’t miss the races, you can follow livetiming from: Click here

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Just one week after the Australian Grand Prix, the GPO field settles down in damping hot Malaysia for the third round

of the Grand-Prix Online championship. The Press is swarming the paddock hoping to get some juicy lines from the drivers. In the Challenge championship Jan-Moritz Kammann leads with 37 points, the Sprint Championship is led by Malcolm Rice, who scored 40 points from the last two Grand Prix.

The Track

Sepang International Circuit is 5.543 meters long and contains 15 corners. Ten of them turn to the right. The drivers will have to complete 56 laps in the Challenge Championship, and 28 laps in the Sprint Championship. The track will be opened for the drivers at 18:00 GMT. Qualifying starts at 19:45 GMT this Saturday.

Sepangs impressive straights

The Challengers

In the Challenge race it looks like an all Kammann race. The fast German is looking for his second win after a rather disappointing race in Melbourne, and the tests look very promising! Don’t forget Drazen Cokor, he has been consistently finishing on the podium and wants to take his maiden win. An outsider might be Stuart Fields, who isn’t much in the picture, but very consistent. Further down the field the battle continues hard with drivers looking to close the gap to the front runners of the first two races.

The Sprint race is opener in who will win this one. Top favorite is Robin van Brenk, who surprisingly won the Australian GP. Malcolm Rice however doesn’t want to give up his first place in the standings. Behind these two, the battle looks more open. Past two races showed a lot of drivers are at a rather same pace, so who will take the points in this race is going to be a big surprise.

Paddock Talk

Yours truly went for a stroll around the paddock and tried to get a hang of a few driver remarks.
First one was the talkative Kammann, who told us he was determined to take the win here:

“I’m only here for first place, second place doesn’t count“, said the German Redspeed driver. Immediately jumping in his car to show his pace which we got the footage from, the lap  view is currently in an editing phase.

Further down the road, we found Ben Williamson looking at his Williamson Dynamics team. He said that WD is trying to improve their pace to make a jump onto the podium. They recently terminated the contract with Patrick Weir, who found a new home in the GRIDline Team.

Sepang Grand Stands

As the paddock isn’t quite filled yet, I couldn’t reach more drivers just yet, but I’ll try to talk to some more drivers in the upcoming days.

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