F1 Preview: Hot and humid in Hockenheim; Halfway stage of the season

The second half of the 2019 Formula One World Championship starts in Germany with Lewis Hamilton leading the way by a big margin of 39 points to Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas.

Last year’s German Grand Prix was pretty dramatic to say the least, with a hydraulics issue meaning Hamilton started down in 14th with scenes of him pushing his car before he somehow turned things around the next day as Sebastian Vettel made an error in very slippery conditions, crashing out of the lead at the Sachs Curve.

The drama did not end there with Hamilton controversially aborting the pitlane by cutting across the track to avoid coming into the pits, he received a reprimand and kept his victory.

A race weekend with a similar amount of drama would be brilliant, but after two great races in Britain and Austria, it might be best to stay calm and look at the most realistic outcomes.

Since the 2002 redesign of the Hockenheim circuit, the never-ending straights through the forests were abandoned and a new layout was built to give us the 2.84 miles track which is still used today.

Although many will say that the older track was better, I don’t think it was. Apart from the crazy 2000 race which gave Rubens Barrichello his maiden Formula One win, the track did not create many classic races. Cars simply dropped out one by one due to engine or transmission failures and the on track action was not good. 

Drivers would simply slipstream by each other and you could not really fight back at the next corner. Personally, I prefer the current layout (but I do wish Hockenheim would alternate with the Nurburgring like they used to between 2007-2014).

This year’s race in Germany is only happening due to a one year contract extension that was agreed 11 months ago but the future of the German GP remains uncertain after this weekend’s race.

Hopefully it stays since Germany is one of the biggest car industry countries, home to some of the best car manufacturers in the world including Audi, BMW, Porsche and of course, current champions Mercedes.

The track itself still requires lots of emphasis on the engine, especially with turn one now flat out (incredibly) with the current generation of F1 cars. Sector one has one braking zone into turn two before a long full throttle stretch towards the best overtaking spot on the track, the hairpin at turn seven.

Plenty of action is guaranteed into here as cars can dive down the inside, drivers attempt to cutback on each other and the width of the track allows cars to go three abreast. 

Then, you can also make a move into turn nine but the drivers will be taking a big risk if they decide to go side by side through the right hand kink at turn eight. After that, the track begins to tighten as you head into the stadium section.

Hockenheim might not look like Silverstone on paper but it has similar characteristics, but in reverse. Sector three of Hockenheim is all about downforce (just like sector one at Silverstone), sector two at Hockenheim requires good straight line speed (just like the middle sector at Silverstone) so there is a lot of emphasis on the power unit. And sector one at Hockenheim is similar to sector three at Silverstone – the power unit is important again but there is a key direction change needed at both circuits.

Will we get a similar pattern and result then?

I believe so. Ferrari should be able to challenge Mercedes in qualifying but will need at least one car on the front row to mount a challenge on Sunday because the Silver Arrows still have pace in hand over the rest of the field in race trim.

Mercedes celebrate two huge milestones this weekend – their 200th race start as a constructor and the 125th anniversary of motorsport. They will run a different livery, a white matte look – going from the teaser photos they have posted on their social media. Whatever colour it is, it will still be the car to beat.

Red Bull were surprisingly close in qualifying at Silverstone with Max Verstappen just 0.183 away from pole sitter Bottas. There is no doubt that Verstappen is not on top of the car and I expect Red Bull to be closer than people think this weekend. The team seem to have overcome the thinner tread Pirelli rubber that they struggled with earlier in the season and it seems that most of the grid have worked out how to get the best out of the tyres.

Pierre Gasly should be able to take good confidence into the weekend after executing by far his best race weekend with Red Bull so far. The bar was pretty low, nevertheless he was much closer to Verstappen, outqualified Vettel, overtook Vettel in the race and was in a position to take advantage of the Vettel/Verstappen incident – a position he was miles away from in races before. 

That is the minimum we should expect from Gasly; to at least put himself in a position to take advantage of incidents or misfortune for the front runners and to play a role in terms of strategy to perhaps interfere with the Mercedes and Ferrari drivers’ races.

In GP2, Gasly was exceptional at Hockenheim by finishing third in the Feature Race (only to get disqualified due to a fire extinguisher in the car going off in the middle of the race) but he recovered well to finish 6th the next day after starting at the back. The Frenchman needs to prove that Silverstone was not a one-off.

Now, it has been ages since it has rained during a race in F1. In fact, the last time the rain has an affect on a Grand Prix was 12 months ago in Hockenheim – hence why Vettel crashed from the lead of the race.

For me, I count Singapore 2017 as the last proper wet race because the intermediates or wets were not the best tyre to be on at any point at last year’s Germen GP despite some drivers switching from slicks to intermediates (a Toro Rosso even tried the wet compound). That means, it has been 37 races since the last wet race. One of the longest ever periods that a race has not seen proper wet conditions.

The last entirely wet race was Brazil 2016, how long will this streak of dry races continue? Funnily enough, in Monaco and Canada this year, the Sunday prior to the F1 race weekend, it rained very hard. F1 just seems to love the sun.

As of writing, rain is forecast for the weekend in Hockenheim. I don’t want to jinx it but rain is possible on Sunday with Germany going through a heatwave, just like much of Western Europe. Temperatures are well above 30 degrees celcius so even without rain, the temperatures alone might throw another key variable for the teams and drivers – Austria is the perfect example when Mercedes suffered badly.

Whether it rains or not, Mercedes remain favourites, although expect Red Bull to be a bigger threat to the Silver Arrows from now on until the final race in Abu Dhabi.