USA: Button's lap of Indianapolis

By BAR F1 (19/06/2004)
June 19 2004

Jenson Button knows how to race around the famous Indiana Speedway - last autumn he led the US Grand Prix for many laps. This is his driver's eye view of the track.

"The F1 circuit in Indianapolis uses one of the banked corners of the Motor Speedway oval as part of the F1 track. The US Grand Prix is usually an interesting race due to the long straight with heavy braking at the end of it, which provides good overtaking opportunities.

"The lap starts with a very long straight where you are on full throttle for over 20 seconds and reach speeds of over 345kph in seventh gear. You brake hard for turns 1 and 2 which are second gear corners taken at around 120kph. This is the place to try and overtake someone but you need to be right behind them at the last corner to stand a chance. Turn 3 is a tricky right hander as you are cornering hard whilst braking down from fourth gear.

"You then have a short burst of acceleration before braking into turns 4 and 5. These are long second gear corners and you can lose a lot of time here if you don't have the right balance. You need a good exit from turn 5 as this leads onto the back straight where you accelerate up to 300kph in sixth.

"You brake down into second gear for turn 6 which is another 120kph corner. You are trying to carry as much speed as possible through here, but if you go too fast you cannot get back across the track for turns 7 and 8. These are very slow first gear right and left hand hairpins.

"You are always struggling for traction out of here and only get up to third gear before you are braking for the last turn. This is the most important corner in the race as if you make a mistake here it gives someone the opportunity to pull alongside coming off the banking. The banking is easily flat although you have to think about your line through here as you don't want to scrub too much speed off."