Driving styles and Cars

Before I write the report of my full experience at Magny Cours, I wanted to comment on how the different cars and drivers managed the corners, especially the Adelaide harpin, where I was seated.

Let’s start with the noisiest cars:

At the entry of the corner, where the drivers were braking, the gear reductions in the Hondas and the Toyota were without doubt the noisiest. They both made a grunt sound of misfiring, a bit more noticeable in the Toyota. But surprisingly those two cars were not the loudest in the corner exit, where the Traction Control is at its maximum.

The loudest in that section were the Ferraris and Kubica. Robert was probably the one using it more, as he accelerated quite early. On the other hand Heidfeld was using less TC at that point.

While the Mclarens were the smoothest in the corner entry in terms of sound, the exit was quite noisy, but with a uniform sound, something different from the Ferrari, which had a more irregular sound.

The Renaults were in the middle term. And the Red Bulls were quite smooth too, especially Coulthard, while the Toro Rosso’s, with a Ferrari engine, were louder.

The most surprising thing was the Williams. Despite running the Toyota engine, the sound was clearly different from the Cologne based team. I’m still not sure why, but it’s a very interesting point.

On how the cars and drivers were cornering, the most interesting was Ferrari.
Even though Massa is known for having an aggressive style, Massa had a smooth apex turn, almost never touching the kerb at Adelaide, while Raikkonen always used the kerb, normally passing both the right front and rear wheels over the kerb. On the other hand Massa had more tendency to lock the wheels while braking, mainly the front ones, while Kimi didn’t.

The driver I liked most in the corner was David Coulthard. He was always error free; he never touched the kerbs, but was always really closed to them, and he had a very clean line.

About the BMW-Sauber drivers, both hit the kerbs, and while Kubica went on the throttle earlier, Heidfeld had a smoother entry and apex. I was surprised too by how Nick looked slow in the “Chateau D’Eau” right hander corner, and during the race in the 180º corner too. Maybe it was just a subjective perception, created by his especially smooth driving style, but when Alonso was following him, he kind of lost the apex every time, running wide. If you have watched the race, you will know what I mean.

Another peculiar situation was during the Friday Practices. Alonso had to use more of the outside kerb at the exit of the Adelaide hairpin than anyone else. I believe it was due to his high fuel load, but cannot confirm it.

Another interesting point was comparing the F1 cars with cars from other series.

It was surprising that, while the GP2 cars had to brake earlier (obviously they have worse brakes) than the F1 cars (around 150 meters vs 120 meters away from the turn apex), the GP2s looked like they had more agility, especially in the corner exit, despite being more prone to sliding. This was probably due to the slicks. To make this more noticeable, the Porsche GT3s braked earlier than the 200 meters signal, and “attacked” the corner later.

The F1 cars sounded more high-pitched, while the GP2s had more of a grunt, and the Porsches sounded really nice, combining a highpitched sound in the straight, with a big grunt at every gear reduction.

And that’s probably all I can say from what I saw from the grandstands. I hope you liked my comments, and learnt more about the characteristics of the F1 cars.

Jaime

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