And so, Doune again
Posted: Tue Apr 30, 2013 11:35 pm
The thing that keeps it interesting, is going faster and faster and faster as wise man once said to me . . . after a lot of wet and damp running and zero confidence in the single seater at Doune (the car and track bite very hard if provoked without confidence) I finally got a dry day the other weekend. I've been convincing myself that all I needed was a dry day to get the car and the hill back into my blood . . .
It's at the higher speeds that you really 'get' the whole point of downforce . . . sure a 200BHP/300Kg car on super soft slicks is fairly nippy, but add in a shed load of downforce and you are firmly into the 'you have to believe it will work' territory . . .
This was the fastest I've been over Meadow, which is an intimidating double apex (look at the tangential runoff - trees and hay bales and no room to stop), and as I was being squeezed into the corner of the cockpit and squashed down into the car, I thought . . . 'fsck' . . . and then braked too late . . .
First time off at East Brae, thankfully 90% of the energy was in the brakes by that point and I didn't have time to panic (I even eased off the brakes as the car unweighted suggesting some kind of higher order brain function switching to tree/bale avoidance mode) . . . but if you don't try hard, you don't go faster . . . and I now know I can take meadow completely flat in this car, whether I have the balls to do so remains to be seen, but the car will stick . . .
In 4 dry runs and I've taken 1 second of last years (only dry run ever at Doune) PB, and over 4 seconds off my Caterham PB and I expect there's a second to come off again with another dry weekend (or so) . . . starting to get a little scary and competitive . . .
Very conservative, everywhere . . . the only thing I remember about this run is the slight understeer coming out of the esses . . . just as lateral grip is now a non linear variable with speed, so is under/oversteer/brake balance . . . which keeps you on your toes . . .
I believe Jonathan and Mac were having a good battle in A5 too . . . with some new PB's also
It's at the higher speeds that you really 'get' the whole point of downforce . . . sure a 200BHP/300Kg car on super soft slicks is fairly nippy, but add in a shed load of downforce and you are firmly into the 'you have to believe it will work' territory . . .
This was the fastest I've been over Meadow, which is an intimidating double apex (look at the tangential runoff - trees and hay bales and no room to stop), and as I was being squeezed into the corner of the cockpit and squashed down into the car, I thought . . . 'fsck' . . . and then braked too late . . .
First time off at East Brae, thankfully 90% of the energy was in the brakes by that point and I didn't have time to panic (I even eased off the brakes as the car unweighted suggesting some kind of higher order brain function switching to tree/bale avoidance mode) . . . but if you don't try hard, you don't go faster . . . and I now know I can take meadow completely flat in this car, whether I have the balls to do so remains to be seen, but the car will stick . . .
In 4 dry runs and I've taken 1 second of last years (only dry run ever at Doune) PB, and over 4 seconds off my Caterham PB and I expect there's a second to come off again with another dry weekend (or so) . . . starting to get a little scary and competitive . . .
Very conservative, everywhere . . . the only thing I remember about this run is the slight understeer coming out of the esses . . . just as lateral grip is now a non linear variable with speed, so is under/oversteer/brake balance . . . which keeps you on your toes . . .
I believe Jonathan and Mac were having a good battle in A5 too . . . with some new PB's also
GOOD EFFORT