When I first looked at the courses for this season, the idea of a mega 6km hillclimb was one of the most alluring prospects about racing in France. That it was the final round of the championship and regarded as one of the most beautiful courses in the calendar just further heightened my anticipation.
Big straights into tight hairpins - erk!
Turkheim itself is near the German border in Alsace and as you get nearer (Herve the van behaved again!) you notice the style of the houses changing, the spelling of towns becoming more Teutonic and every field apparently becomes a vineyard.
I managed to use a car for most of Friday and had about four sessions driving the hill; this tends to work well as I can work on the Formula Renault in between. The first corner is a long fast right that has been fitted with a chicane in recent times - it must have been crazy before as I was approaching flat in fifth just shy of the limiter! After this you are into a series of fast third-gear bends and hairpins before the track starts to flow a little more. There are some tricky approaches into hairpins where you are flat through a kink to keep your speed up before diving onto the brakes as you go deep into the corner. Another one sees you accelerating flat out round a corner that suddenly tightens into a hairpin that then doubles back on itself - timing your braking here is critical as I learnt on Sunday morning... Then there is an incredible slalom section that cambers inwards where you can carry ludicrous amounts of speed; this hill has everything!.
I used the time on Friday to fit the new hillclimb-grade pads, which proved to be trickier than I'd hoped. The FR is known for issues with brake pistons binding and was happy to have escaped any woes this season until now, but the wider pads meant that the piston was pushed further back into the body of the caliper and this caused issues. I'd planned to bed them in on the way to the start as you drive a long way to pre grille, but the fronts were too tight on the disc and, sure enough, any real pressure provoked a lock up even at second gear speeds... Come Saturday morning I took it especially easy on the first run, everything felt fine and I figured that I must have given the pads a good workout as the car seemed to stop well enough. My main concern though was it grabbing a wheel on one of the difficult approaches (some are bumpy too) and firing me into the scenery backwards!
New brake pads worked well. Eventually
Run two went well and I took ten seconds off to finish on a 3min 3secs with the class leaders running in the low 2:50s. Sadly I'd been sidetracked with chatting to members of the public (a few PHers too!) and forgotten to charge the camera. On a longer course it's vital to look back and see exactly which corners you got right or wrong, your gear changes or braking - it's impossible to accurately remember enough detail to approach your next ascent with a mental list of pace notes to improve on.
Rain came overnight, and the sky looked quite dark driving to the paddock that morning. Being one of the last runners I asked some of the earlier drivers what the hill was like and they said it was pretty treacherous under the trees. I therefore treated the first go as a sighting run, to focus on a few corners that kept catching me out (one opens, another tightens, the third is in between) so set off at about eight tenths to quickly find that the track had now dried out. I upped the pace and started pushing harder, brakes working well until I arrived at the long fast corner that turns into the nasty hairpin a bit too quickly...
Realising I was never going to make it I just braked hard in a straight line and came to a stop about a foot from a large rock, rolling backwards on the slope to drive off and finish on a 3min 13sec. Chatting to a friend in the paddock he said "someone went straight on at that hairpin, did you see the big black lines?" Yeah...
6km course demands a lot of work!
Turkheim just goes on forever and it's slightly strange being behind the wheel for so long. I still made a few slips going a gear higher than intended, but made my objective of braking three minutes to set a 2mins 59secs, and now I had some footage to watch back too. Having no electricity in the paddock meant that I didn't have too much time to watch it back as I was having to clean the tyres manually with a surform, but I at least felt a little more focused for my final drive of 2015.
I really went hell for leather, braking as late as I dared for the chicane mid-way between the 100m and 50m boards and nearly clipping the tyres on the way through - brakes definitely working now! I kept flat through a few of the faster corners where it just feels amazing to sense the car gripping and gripping, trying to get the car turning in earlier at the hairpins, the nose just washing out wide a couple of times. It was so intense that my hands were shaking after I crossed the line, always a good sign that I was pushing 100 per cent! I stopped the clock at 2mins 57secs to finish 12th out of 13 drivers, which on the face of it doesn't sound too hot. However, when you consider that there were just over three seconds between me and the next seven cars it illustrates just what a fantastic class D/E7 is. It also gives me a lot of motivation for next season; I'm satisfied with my progression this year as I feel that my ability to drive the car has improved in both wet and dry. Onwards to 2016!
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Watch the dailymotion edit
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Charlie Martin - Formule Renault 2...
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