Lets Hope For Cold And Wet
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A wet and foggy Friday in Germany for the Eifel Grand Prix. Cold temperatures are expected throughout the weekend which will make things harder for the teams.
The practice session 1 and 2 was cancelled due to the flying conditions and not the track conditions. The reason behind it is the hospital is 55 minutes away by road so the medical helicopters need to be able to fly. They have all the flying instruments so the only problem is landing at the hospital on the roof. Apparently you need line of sight and unlike airports with the beacons that assist the flying instruments the hospitals don't have these. This happened earlier in the season at the Red Bull ring when non flying weather threatened to cancel the race.
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Mick Schumacher (Michael's son) was meant to be included in the practice session with Alfa Romeo but due to the cancellation he will now have to wait until Abu Dhabi. The rumor mill reckons he will be racing in Formula One next season after a successful season in the Formula 2 series.
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Television helicopters can fly as they don't need an instrument landing system and can land on the grass in the middle of the circuit. If the hospital had one installed then there would be no problem. This is a safety issue and nothing else.
RTT the German television broadcaster must be kicking themselves as their contract televising the live races comes to an end. It is expected to increase viewership from the estimated 6 million in Germany to 20 million or more. I expect it to be announced over the coming weeks and Alfa Romeo will have his seat dropping Raikonnen for next season.
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This weekends race at the Nurburgring will be interesting as it is a cold race so keeping the heat in the tyres will be the key. Sunday is forecasted to be the coldest day at 9 degrees so possibly angling the back tyres inward by a few degrees will help generate heat but that won't be great for durability.
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Lets hope they don't use any of these tyre compounds and only have green and blue ones meaning it is wet.
When the problem arises is when there is a safety car as the temperature of the tyres drops off very quickly. It would take a few laps to get the tyre temperatures up to the racing heat required. Mercedes have DAS (Dual axis steering) which should give them the advantage over every other team. This allows them to change the angle of the front tyres using the steering wheel generating heat resulting in more grip.
Having a new calendar based in Europe going into the winter months was going to throw up some different weather which adds extra spice and interest. Every racing enthusiast loves to see rain as it changes things so much. Certain drivers are better in the rain than others and it kind of levels the field a bit more making the result not so obvious.
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The bet is still on between Daniel Riccardo and Cyril Abiteboul with the deal that if Riccardo makes it onto the podium Cyril has to get a tattoo. With rain around this could be the weekend for Cyril to get some ink.