Driving an F1 car. One word, GRIP!!
Discussion
So, for years, driving an F1 car has been the only item on my bucket list and I’ve been procrastinating for ages. In fact I asked about it on here back in 2005; yes, it’s been on my mind that long! For those who just want to cut to the chase, the story is all there in the youtube links and the flickr folder. In brief it was an absolutely tremendous day, easily one of the best in my life. Expensive as hell but it absolutely blew me away. Biggest impact wasn’t the acceleration or the brakes, but the grip. It’s just VAST. My brain just couldn’t get over how much was available. At one point I thought I’d overcooked it into turn 1 and it was all going to go squirrel nutkin, but the car went round easily. I think this is the single hardest thing to metabolise since nothing in a road car prepares you for these levels of grip.
I have my wife to thank for this. She knew it was important to me, researched it, and decided the people to do it were Wildside, based in Reading www.adren-a-line.com. She booked it up, paid a deposit and that was one of my Christmas presents. Long story short, we booked it, 10 laps, Circuit de Catalunya Barcelona, first week of July in a Jaguar R2. You can choose other circuits but we decided to make a mini break of it, plus you can be more confident of the weather than other places.
The reason I chose the R2 was the sound; to me this is one of the most important things about any car, and certainly an F1 car. The current generation is just pathetic in this regard, so part of the attraction was an old school, howling V10 behind my head. All good, until around 10 days before we were due to go, Nick Duncan from Wildside called to say that the Jag had blown it’s engine and would be out of action for a month. Sh*t! Bless him though, he offered me several alternatives, including rebooking the whole trip for the Hungaroring in September. The other main option was to ‘upgrade’ to the Williams FW33 from 2011. This is the most expensive package and I’d get fewer laps, but the main reason I hadn’t considered it was because I thought it would sound sh*t. Quick google and it absolutely does NOT sound sh*t, so put more money in the pot and booked up 10 laps in the Williams.
Format of the day is 2x 10 lap sessions in Formula Renault single seaters, mainly I think to check that you’re not a dick, but these were surprisingly fun. Not the main event sure, and I wouldn’t have come out just for this.
The main worry beads ahead of time were would I fit, and what if it’s like Richard Hammond's go in the Benneton. On the first point, it’s clear from the attendees that they’re all middle aged men in various stages of roundness, so cockpit space was absolutely necessary. I needn’t have worried since I fit pretty easily. In fact the Benneton they had there had such a large cockpit I reckon you could get a small hippo in it. The other worry bead was having a mare of a day like Hammond though. To make sure I wasn’t totally hopeless, I did a couple of sim sessions with Mark Blundell's driver training outfit in Royston. This was mainly to learn the track, but also to check out technique; I don’t do track days and have no pretences of being a racing driver. Moreover, this would be my first proper experience of single seaters, so I was keen not to suck at it. Bottom line, it was surprisingly useful in retrospect; all the bits where I messed up on the sim were the same as those where I messed up for real if that’s anything to go by.
Anyway, let’s cut to the chase and the vids are below. Against my better judgement I’m including the onboard go-pro footage, because it really captures the experience well. There’s bound to be comment on my driving technique, but you know what, I really don’t care. Yes I know I messed up in lots of places and I wasn’t pushing it hard enough. But. Put it in the gravel and it’s game over for the afternoon and the objective was to experience it, not set a lap time. It also shows the bit where I thought ‘sh*t just got real’, which was where they took the tyre warmers off; we’ve all seen that on TV, but when you see it happening in front of you, it really brings it home.
Anyway, this is the story of an ordinary car dude plonked into an F1 car for the first time. I hope it’s useful for anyone else considering it. It’s an enormous investment in a life experience, but one that did quite literally blow me away. All up, wait for it... over 15K. Yes that's right, around £10 per second, so it’s a big deal for anyone! There's very little out there to guide you, so hopefully this will help
https://www.flickr.com/gp/129817784@N08/6y610E
https://youtu.be/S2DhOjJSjFE
https://youtu.be/oClTWhI44mE
As a thank you to my wife, I also booked her a passenger ride in a 3 seater..
https://youtu.be/bHs15S3Pl9o
I have my wife to thank for this. She knew it was important to me, researched it, and decided the people to do it were Wildside, based in Reading www.adren-a-line.com. She booked it up, paid a deposit and that was one of my Christmas presents. Long story short, we booked it, 10 laps, Circuit de Catalunya Barcelona, first week of July in a Jaguar R2. You can choose other circuits but we decided to make a mini break of it, plus you can be more confident of the weather than other places.
The reason I chose the R2 was the sound; to me this is one of the most important things about any car, and certainly an F1 car. The current generation is just pathetic in this regard, so part of the attraction was an old school, howling V10 behind my head. All good, until around 10 days before we were due to go, Nick Duncan from Wildside called to say that the Jag had blown it’s engine and would be out of action for a month. Sh*t! Bless him though, he offered me several alternatives, including rebooking the whole trip for the Hungaroring in September. The other main option was to ‘upgrade’ to the Williams FW33 from 2011. This is the most expensive package and I’d get fewer laps, but the main reason I hadn’t considered it was because I thought it would sound sh*t. Quick google and it absolutely does NOT sound sh*t, so put more money in the pot and booked up 10 laps in the Williams.
Format of the day is 2x 10 lap sessions in Formula Renault single seaters, mainly I think to check that you’re not a dick, but these were surprisingly fun. Not the main event sure, and I wouldn’t have come out just for this.
The main worry beads ahead of time were would I fit, and what if it’s like Richard Hammond's go in the Benneton. On the first point, it’s clear from the attendees that they’re all middle aged men in various stages of roundness, so cockpit space was absolutely necessary. I needn’t have worried since I fit pretty easily. In fact the Benneton they had there had such a large cockpit I reckon you could get a small hippo in it. The other worry bead was having a mare of a day like Hammond though. To make sure I wasn’t totally hopeless, I did a couple of sim sessions with Mark Blundell's driver training outfit in Royston. This was mainly to learn the track, but also to check out technique; I don’t do track days and have no pretences of being a racing driver. Moreover, this would be my first proper experience of single seaters, so I was keen not to suck at it. Bottom line, it was surprisingly useful in retrospect; all the bits where I messed up on the sim were the same as those where I messed up for real if that’s anything to go by.
Anyway, let’s cut to the chase and the vids are below. Against my better judgement I’m including the onboard go-pro footage, because it really captures the experience well. There’s bound to be comment on my driving technique, but you know what, I really don’t care. Yes I know I messed up in lots of places and I wasn’t pushing it hard enough. But. Put it in the gravel and it’s game over for the afternoon and the objective was to experience it, not set a lap time. It also shows the bit where I thought ‘sh*t just got real’, which was where they took the tyre warmers off; we’ve all seen that on TV, but when you see it happening in front of you, it really brings it home.
Anyway, this is the story of an ordinary car dude plonked into an F1 car for the first time. I hope it’s useful for anyone else considering it. It’s an enormous investment in a life experience, but one that did quite literally blow me away. All up, wait for it... over 15K. Yes that's right, around £10 per second, so it’s a big deal for anyone! There's very little out there to guide you, so hopefully this will help
https://www.flickr.com/gp/129817784@N08/6y610E
https://youtu.be/S2DhOjJSjFE
https://youtu.be/oClTWhI44mE
As a thank you to my wife, I also booked her a passenger ride in a 3 seater..
https://youtu.be/bHs15S3Pl9o
great post 456. this reaffirms faith in this site!
How much track driving have you done? can you expand on your history, useful to help share the insight. I'm prompted to ask this from my own experience doing track days and then driving a F3000 and most notably a Radical. Grip was phenomenal, especially when aero kicked in. Hard to fully explain the feeling of going faster and realising you can add another 30mph to entry speed just because you're already going faster and the aero is working. My cajones weren't big enough to fully exploit in the short time i had!
when watching F1 I'm always in awe that they're pulling 5G whereas fast road driving is less than 1 and fast track is 1.5G. The level of commitment and reaction time required is unbelievable.
How much track driving have you done? can you expand on your history, useful to help share the insight. I'm prompted to ask this from my own experience doing track days and then driving a F3000 and most notably a Radical. Grip was phenomenal, especially when aero kicked in. Hard to fully explain the feeling of going faster and realising you can add another 30mph to entry speed just because you're already going faster and the aero is working. My cajones weren't big enough to fully exploit in the short time i had!
when watching F1 I'm always in awe that they're pulling 5G whereas fast road driving is less than 1 and fast track is 1.5G. The level of commitment and reaction time required is unbelievable.
kin jealous!
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