By Will Gray, England
Atlas F1 Technical Writer

From the fast turns of the Silverstone circuit, Formula One moves to the long straights and tight chicanes of Hockenheim for the German Grand Prix. As always, Atlas F1 Technical Writer Will Gray previews the event.

The Formula One teams head to Germany this weekend knowing that at the Hockenheim circuit any chances of success rest in the hands of reliability. The circuit is a true car breaker, and engine manufacturers will be carefully monitoring their telemetry screens in the hope that their units are up to the high power demands made by the long straights that make up three quarters of the track.

The cars can reach over 210mph (335km/h) through the woods on the 4.2-mile (6.7km) circuit, and that means the engines will be working at full load and high revs for a large proportion of the lap. But with the high speeds come many associated problems that make Hockenheim a truly tough race.

Engine failure due to the immense stresses is a real concern, but so too are the brakes, which are put under immense pressure as the cars slow down from over 200mph (320km/h) for the three 60mph (95km/h) chicanes spread around the circuit. Brake wear will, therefore, be a key area of concentration for the car's engineers, who will have to ensure adequate air gets in to cool the red-hot carbon brake discs.

The brakes can rapidly wear away even if well cooled, and the teams will have to ensure they choose a disc that is thick enough to cope with the 135 times the cars will have to slow down for the chicanes during the 45-lap race. But extra thickness means extra weight, and the teams will have to ensure they make the correct compromise between brake reliability and weight minimisation. In the same way brake cooling creates top speed-reducing drag, so there will also be some compromise there, and the teams are sure to run less cooling and thinner brake discs in qualifying.

To ensure the cars reach the highest speeds possible, the main aim at the Hockenheim circuit is to have the cars running in the lowest downforce configuration of any race throughout the year, and many teams will have developed special high efficiency wings for the German race.

One of the most important figures in Formula One aerodynamics is the downforce to drag factor, or aerodynamic efficiency. The most efficient aerodynamic part of the car is the underfloor, followed by the front and rear wings, but the designers can change the profiles of those wings to maximise their efficiency further.

In places such as Monaco teams throw all manner of aerodynamic devices on the cars to maximise the downforce, and therefore the grip. But Hockenheim is the exact opposite and the teams will reduce the number of elements on the rear wing and reduce the flap angle on the front to maximise efficiency - some have even run without a rear wing at all in the past.

Hockenheim, however, also has a twisty section of 60mph (95km/h) corners called The Stadium, which requires the cars to have good grip and that presents a compromise problem for the teams. But the stadium section is only a small part of the overall lap, and teams are sure to go for a low downforce set-up to allow them to have good speed and therefore good overtaking possibilities on the straight, and hope the driver will make the car as wide as possible around the twisty section to keep position.

However, in qualifying the teams may choose to compromise the set-up a little more, increasing the downforce to ensure a faster time through the stadium section and an overall quicker lap. Tyres could also be an important factor in the race as rear tyre degradation is often a problem at the demanding circuit. That, however, may be a thing of the past with traction control, and the tyre manufacturers should be able to supply softer rubber to create faster lap times without the worry of deterioration.

But neither Bridgestone nor Michelin will have prior knowledge of the circuit because no teams have tested around Hockenheim this year, and they will all face a race against time to match the tyres to the car and circuit during the Friday practice sessions.

The characteristics of the track surface are very important when it comes to tyre wear, and any loss of time in Friday practice could hurt heavily. However, most of the teams on the grid have taken the opportunity to test at the high-speed Monza circuit in Italy. That will have given them good clues to how the cars run in low downforce set-up, but the teams will still have to hone the set-ups from there to suit the Hockenheim circuit.

The weather could also throw a spanner in the works, with clouds often hugging the tree-clad circuit to create inclement weather and difficult conditions for the teams. If it does rain, however, that will at least provide some relief for the cars as slower speeds down the straights will reduce the punishment on the engines, but if the sun shines it is sure to be the most powerful and most reliable engine which wins the day.