Zoom A new venue and circuit for the F1 circus

Ahead of Friday free practice at the new Valencia street circuit, Rubens Barrichello is joined by championship leader Lewis Hamilton, Felipe Massa and Jarno Trulli for the Thursday press conference at the European Grand Prix.

Q: A question to you all. Can you give us your impressions of the circuit and Valencia?
Jarno TRULLI: So far it is nice, warm and sunny. The circuit looks good but obviously we need to wait until we get into the rhythm of the weekend to understand what kind or what type of circuit it is as we don’t know much about it. But it looks pretty good, very well organised and obviously the atmosphere seems great because we are in Spain and for sure we will have a lot of Spanish supporters.

Rubens BARRICHELLO: I love it. I think the facility and the track, the surface, the asphalt, is all fantastic. I mean, well prepared, very, very nice. The only thing I don’t like is that the policemen keep on telling me to turn right. My hotel is a five minute walk from here and it takes me half an hour as they tell me to go to Barcelona and come back so that’s the only thing I don’t think they are very well prepared. Apart from that the whole situation inside of the track is pretty nice.

Q: You are hoping to cut your lap time between hotel and circuit?
RB: I hope by Sunday it will take me only 20 minutes.

Q: Felipe, your feelings on what you have seen so far?
Felipe MASSA: I think it is pretty impressive, interesting. I think it is a pretty different track than we are used to having on the calendar. You can have maybe some corners which seem to be like Monaco but some very different corners, very long straights which even can be similar to Bahrain for example. I think it is very nice. It will be very, very dirty tomorrow because you can see that the asphalt is very, very slippery and dirty but I think it will be ok. I think it will be nice. I like the city, very nice, so hopefully we can have a nice race for us but also for the people.

Q: Lewis, your first impressions?
Lewis HAMILTON: First of all it is great to be here in Valencia. I had a race here in GP2 in 2006 but this is really the first time, apart from the launch last year for Vodafone McLaren Mercedes, into the city for me and it is a beautiful place. I think they have done a fantastic job in building the place up. It has got a great hotel and the track looks incredible. I think it looks pretty awesome, so I am looking forward to getting out on it tomorrow.