Dumbreck's lap of Lausitz

"I'm doing 160mph by the time I brake at the 100 metre board for the first corner, a left-hander leads into a right-then-left sequence. It's down to third and you need to let the car roll into the corner a bit, almost steering from the rear, and it's quite easy to throw the car around because we're not running much downforce here. It's not an easy corner at all, which isn't helped because there's a tyrewall adjacent to your apex, so you need to get as close as you can without hitting it.

"Assuming you've survived that OK, you run quite wide over the kerb on the slight right-hander and straightline that to get to the kerb on the inside of the tight left-hander that follows, for which you change down to second. You can't get on it too much through here or the rear of the car will slide out too much.

"Then there's a tight right-hander you take in first gear, which you can't really carry much speed into, say maybe 30mph, and then it's a left which takes you on to the back straight. Halfway through the exit of that corner is a little bump which gives the car a lot of oversteer and wheelspin.

"Off the back straight there's a very difficult left-hander, where the camber drops away as you turn in. When you go into it the back starts to slide, and there's always a lot of dirt around because that's where people tend to run wide, so there's a lack of traction. You use a wee bit of kerb on the following right-hander, but if you use too much it makes the car understeer towards the exit.

"I keep the car in the middle of the track for the next left-hander, which is a really long second gear corner. You have to go very deep into it and then bang the power down on the way out, and you get lots of understeer there because the camber drops away again. At least there's a kerb there this year, and everyone is using it.

"I get up to the rev limit in fourth on the following straight and then drop down a gear for the fast right-hander, with just a dab of the brakes on the way in. The car oversteers on the way in, you wait for it to settle in the middle of the corner, and then you get understeer on the way out - again people tend to go off here because it's difficult to judge how early you can get on the power.

"Then you run down to another tight left-hander. It's first or second gear, and again you can brake quite deep into it, so a lot of people go off here. You accelerate up to third through a flat-out kink and then brake hard, change down to first, for the right-hander which leads into the left-hander on to the oval. A smooth exit is vital on to the banking, which is obviously flat-out, and that's the lap."



"It's a shame they can't incorporate more of the banking into the road course. For example, we could run around Turn One and rejoin the road course on the back straight. That would be cool. I guess they're worried about shunts though."



"For sure, it would be a great experience. I think it's one of those things where it looks quite daunting, but after a few laps you'd be looking to find ways of going faster. You get a good bit of notice from these cars about when you're going to lose control, you can hold the car in a slide quite easily. If you got a bit loose on the banking, I'm sure you could gather it all up before you hit the wall."



"I prefer it to some tracks in Germany. It's OK, it's not boring or anything, there is a lot of variety of corners. They've done a fairly good job, but they still haven't mastered the kerb thing. It's better than last year, when the kerbs were in all the wrong places. They've put the kerbs in, but now they've ended them where you want it to keep going. It's not what we wanted, but it's going to have to do."



"I think they will be strong. [Manuel] Reuter was quick yesterday for Opel too, so I think they could be good. I think that's good for Opel and it's good for the championship. You never know what might happen in qualifying anyway. If it rains and stops again [like it did at Sachsenring], maybe I'll have pole."