A lap of the track with Ralf Schumacher

The first corner is always a bit deceiving because you think that you can go a lot quicker through it, but suddenly at the exit you realise that you run out of space, so you have to be careful not to lose the car there. The straights are nothing special. In an F3 car they were boring and you could have a cup of coffee, but in F1 they are a lot shorter!

Braking into the first chicane with these low downforce cars is always exciting, because the rear tries to come around on you. Going through the chicane is nothing special, but it's always important to have quite a good exit. It's taken in second gear.

Going into the Ostkurve is difficult because you think that you can brake very late, but you soon find out that you can't! There is a bump on the entry which upsets the car, and it jumps around. It's in second, and again you need quite a good exit. How much you use the kerbs really depends on the car.

The third chicane, Senna, is quite quick. You have to have a good car on the kerbs; again the exit is very important and you have to hit the left hand kerb on the inside and be early on the throttle.

Coming into the motodrom is always an amazing feeling, but when you are on a quick lap you don't really notice the crowd. But in last year's qualifying I stopped there, and it was a great experience. It's a reasonably quick right hand corner, taken in fourth gear. On the exit you can see a lot of dirt coming up when people go too wide.

When you brake for the Sachs Kurve it's easy to lock up the front left wheel because the track falls away. It's quite easy to brake too late and to miss the corner. It's a first gear corner, quite a slow one. It's followed by a couple of kinks, taken in third gear.

The last two corners are interesting. You go down to the first one and at first it's all right, but mid-corner you suddenly get a nervous car and then you always struggle with understeer. You can't maintain your power; you always feel slow there, and that you could improve the car. Out of the last one it's obviously important to keep up your speed for the pit straight.

All three chicanes are possible overtaking places, but you have to have a good exit from the previous one.


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