European GP, 29th May, 2005

With the blue riband event, the Monaco GP, out of the way, F1 moves on to the European GP held at the Nurburgring in Germany. Once one of the most ferocious circuits in the world, it has been muted beyond all recognition although still remains popular with fans and drivers alike. In particular the German fans have enjoyed an impressive winning record at the event from their hero, Michael Schumacher. It's fair to say a victory for the reigning world champion would be somewhat akin to Liverpool coming back from a 3-0 deficit at half time in Istanbul, although stranger things have happened. The biggest problem for Michael will be the strength of the opposition. Not only does Renault have a good car, but it appears Mclaren have surpassed everyone with the latest incarnation of their car with Kimi scoring two wins on the bounce, he'll be doubly keen to win here in front of the Mercedes top brass.Add to this the return of exiled BAR who have been going astonishingly quickly in testing and have a serious point to prove if the world is to believe their early season pace was legitimate. Button must realise his title hopes are in tatters for 2005, so he has nothing to lose by going for each and every win for the remainder of the season.Renault had their first disappointing result at Monaco which many people are predicting to be the end of their dominant spell this season, although the result was due to a bad strategy which left both drivers running shot tyres by the end of the race. With the title at stake, it's unlikely they will repeat such mistakes again. The Williams pairing of Heidfeld and Webber scored a remarkable double podium at Monaco, although the pace of the car was seriously flattered by an optimistic strategy. It was not a reflection of their true pace this season.With just the one week for the teams to prepare for this race, developments will be thin on the ground so don't expect any leaps in performance from the front runners, the only area open to uncertainty involves the new qualifying system, now reduced to one lap on race fuel loads. This magnifies the effect of a mistake or heavy fuel load on qualifying position so team strategies will inevitably shift towards shorter first stints to gain track position. With the odds so tight on the front runners (with Raikkonen being the bookies choice) it could well be worth looking further afield to a young Brit who has nothing much to lose and a point to prove. Button is cracking value at 25/1 for the win.Alonso's team will realise they don't have the beating of Kimi with an equal strategy, so the potential of a light fuel load means Alonso is likely to secure the pole position (7/2 with Bluesquare).