|
Ok, let’s do a journey into a
driver’s mind on this great and very demanding track. But before we start,
let me generally explain the challenge of Sepang. The track was quite flat
once, but has become kind of bumpy over the years. Even so, it has
everything a driver likes, everything that challenges an engineer and it is
also hot and physically demanding.
 My
favourite section is the quick left-right chicane, turns five and six, which
is quite similar in terms of driving style to the chicane section at
Bahrain. Probably the key corners though are the first two. You might say
that they are ‘Mickey Mouse’, but from a driving and engineering point of
view they are not easy at all.
We arrive at turn 1 in top gear at more than 185mph. The braking point is
very late, as the grip is very high here, so all that matters really is to
be precise when you jump on the brake pedal around 80 metres before the
corner. Braking at the beginning is not that difficult – standard high-g
with lots of pressure on the pedal. Once you come closer to the entry, then
you have to control the brakes with much more care. Why? Simple: if you keep braking
too hard for too long you use too much energy from the tyres for straight
line deceleration and that would mean the car and tyres will start to
understeer. Or, even worse, if you keep braking too hard at turn in, and you
under-rotate the front wheels then once you come off the brake the car will
automatically make a snap or sudden move, which is not good. So now the
clever ones of you tell me “well Wurzy - you shouldn’t brake too long and
too much anyway”.
Blindingly clever that comment
is, but it’s easier said than done to have the car set up for such things.
Naturally you want to carry lots of speed into the corner, taken in second
gear, with a very long apex. To carry lots of speed we need the car to be
neutral, not understeering, but also with quite a stable rear end. If you
get that, it would be brilliant, but as only very few drivers have the
luxury of such a car, the rest must
improvise with the driving style.
The entry point to this corner is a point for setting up the car. Well, it
is for me, anyway. If you are watching on telly you will see many drivers
will slightly vary the entry line (very little variation, less than 1 metre
makes a difference, but it might be difficult to spot). After this, we come
to the real strange corner, turn two. It’s really difficult. As a driver you
like to cut the shortest way through such a tight corner (some of us use
first gear, some second), but it has a big change in height (camber change)
in the apex. The track literally drops down and the inside wheels are in the
air. So all my colleagues know that cutting too short is not good. You have
to accept here that this corner feels slow. It feels horrible, actually and
never well balanced. If you accept this and drive patiently then you might
not lose too much time. You can’t really win time here, only lose it by
trying too hard or being too aggressive.
That makes it a tough corner for the engineers, too. The super-slow entry
means the car is always doing something, mainly understeering, but once the
front goes in and over the camber change and lands, the rear becomes a
problem. The moment when the rear drops over the camber change and is in the
air is exactly when the driver wants to pick up the throttle. This causes
chaos to many aspects: the diff is confused, as one wheel is light or in the
air; the traction control is also confused and might act strangely. On top
of this, the driver will make a correction on the steering wheel, because at
this time the front wheels are loading up after coming down from the camber
change in the track.
All this at the same time on this so-called ‘Mickey Mouse corner is a lot.
It’s not a man’s corner no, but a clever driver just rolls the car around,
accepts the situation and just makes sure his exit is clean. Sounds easy,
doesn’t it? |
