The track is great, it’s one of the tracks
that generally drivers struggle with a little bit more because
it's so hot, very humid and it runs anti-clockwise. Most
tracks are clockwise which means the left side of
the body is a bit weaker than the right.
Turn 1 is a very tricky corner as it’s very long, deceivingly long, so you are braking for a
long, long time but you can’t shed off too much speed. It
is very important you get a tight exit and stay as far to the
left on the exit so you can be flat on turn 2. You need to be flat out
through turn 2, there's a slight bump at the Apex and then it'd flat out through turn 3 at which point you are on KERS for
a certain amount of time.
It's important to try and get a fast and smooth exit as it is important for the straight.
Braking down to turn 4, you can leave it really late past the
50m sign and carry tonnes of speed in. Get back on the
power as fast as you can. Again, a little bit of KERS, flat
out through 5, up the hill in to turn 6 which you attack. You
turn in while you are still on power and you come off a
little bit, probably half throttle mid corner and then try to
get back to hit the second apex at turn 7.
Back to the
outside to get in straight lane for braking before turn 8 which is a corner which is very easy to lock up. Take a lot
of the curb, pretty much all of the curb for turn 8 to get
yourself in a good position for turn 9 which then drops
down in to a little bit of a banked corner. You hug the apex
through 9, keep it at minimum speed, and then really
accelerate as hard as you can on the exit braking up to
turn 10 which is always very tricky for locking.
Turn 1, 8 and 10 are the trickiest for locking at this track so you have to set the car up just right
Particularly putting a bit of corner
weight on the right side to try and stop the front wheels
from locking. That means from the left rear to the right
front, they put more weight across the car, usually
something like 5-10 kilos which means the car can brake better without locking.
Getting a good exit out of turn 10, you go flat out
through 11 where the car is generally a little bit nervous as it’s flat out downhill so the car is
generally trying to get away from you. Braking nice and
deep in to turn 12 where it is really important to get as
strong an exit as possible, then flat out and all the boost you
have left up the hill.
Just for information, turn 1 is 2nd gear, turn 2
3rd, then flat out up through gears through 3, braking
down to 3rd through 4, flat out up to 6th, take it 5th through
6 and 7, down to 2nd through 8 and up to 3rd and then
back down to 2nd gear for 9, 10 and 12.
Anyway, braking down, you have the long straight it is important to get a good exit out of turn 12, flat out all the way up the hill which is incredibly steep through 13 and you are trying to keep the steering wheel as straight as possible down the straight, across the line. You boost all the way down to start your lap you usually just KERS all the way down to the start line and probably DRS and then braking as late as you can.
Set-up
You wouldn’t set the car up too stiff for this track as it is
very bumpy with it being an old track and small circuit.
You may change the brake material, as I said locking is a
big issue so you might have a brake calliper or brake
material that has less bite.
It’s a medium and low speed
circuit so is important to have lots of downforce, you have
the car a little lower on the rear generally and use the car
a little bit lower on the front.
As I have said, overtaking is very difficult.
You can overtake down in to turn 1 and very difficult to
follow from 3 so that is generally the main spot to
overtake.