British GP- Preview
3 weeks have passed since the last GP in Canada, which marked the end of the second third of the F.1 Championship. Teams have had three weeks to develop upgrades, which can be fundamental to get the pole and seal a win.
Silverstone is a true circuit, besides being historical. What is more it’s located in a country where weather conditions have always played a key role. Traditionally Red Bull and Mercedes are the most favourite teams, even though Ferrari cannot treat itself to lose further ground. It was just on the British track that the Italian team sealed the win with Alonso. These three teams are certainly the most favourite to take a win at Silverstone, with Hamilton and Rosberg ready to bother Vettel and try to take the pole.
Talking about Lotus, the team has sold 35% of its shares to go ahead with the development work. The team will have to strategically defer the income throughout the racing season. No doubt they will be dreadful outsiders along with Force India and, under particular weather conditions, also Toro Rosso and McLaren will join the list of dreadful outsiders.
As far as the Williams is concerned, the British GP will be so important for the English team, which is going to celebrate its 600th F.1 GP. It is an amazing goal achieved by the Frank Williams’ owned team, which is going through a difficult period because of a technical and managerial change inside it. I really trust in Frank’s job, as he has always been so skilled in reverse difficult situation to his own benefit and renew the team.
In the past few days the “Test-gate” verdict was returned. I do agree with that. They made one more test, so they’re not allowed to take part in the test day dedicated to rookie drivers. It’s a very important test session as, despite it is dedicated to young drivers, teams take advantage of those days to make some tests. I hope that this useless soap opera about the closure of F.1 test will soon come to an end.
Silverstone 1989 is maybe the best race ever run by the Minardi Team. We finished in the top 10 thanks to Martini and Sala 5th and 6th positions. In those years, points scoring and TV rights acquisition as a consequence of the first condition, were divided into 2 semesters. Silverstone were the last GP of the first semester, so we had to score at least 2 points. Thanks to Martini and Sala we were even able to score 3 points. We successfully reached a very important goal for our team. I was talking about that with Pier Luigi just few days ago, I think it’s the best race ever run by the duo Minardi-Martini. Back to Bologna, despite the Ferrari had sealed the win with Mansell, there were many people from Faenza at the airport to celebrate our success. It was just on that occasion that started our collaboration with Mr.Fusaro, the President of Ferrari, who supplied our cars with the Ferrari engine in the 1991 F.1 season.
