Wurz of wisdom - Canada

Alexander Wurz, the test and reserve driver of the Williams F1 Team, shares his wisdom with us regarding the Canadian Grand Prix that is held this weekend at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal.

Alexander Wurz “This time nine years ago I was handed a Concorde ticket to fly to Montreal via New York and was told in typical Flavio Briatore English: “Yu maybe driv. Ta” (meaning I might have to race as a substitute for Gerhard Berger at the Canadian GP). So, there I was, waiting at terminal four at Heathrow, with no idea about the track in Montreal. I decided to go to the newsstand for a copy of Autosport, hoping for a good explanation of the track. It had the usual stuff, showing gears and speeds, but it was pretty useless for a driver, if I’m honest! Still, at least I saw the layout of the track. Anyway, just in case some young gun gets a last-minute call-up this weekend, here’s my view on Montreal – which I would hope explains it a bit better than the Autosport article I found once upon a time. And guess what? In very un-typical F1 style, this advice just costs you £2.90, with no commission and no hidden extras.

The first thing you have to know about Canada is that, although it looks easy, it is, in fact, a very tricky track. It has nasty bumps and most of the time the rear end of the car wants to drive quicker around the corners than the front. But it does rubber-in a lot over the weekend, so the circuit gets much quicker from the first Friday session to Sunday race day.

What of the track itself? Well, after the start-finish we have a second gear left-hander. The braking point is not that difficult to find, but still “species race driver” always tries to out-brake the laws of physics and as a result we see cars sliding off there. Some of you might laugh at me saying that, because after the start in ’98 I didn’t think the laws of physics applied to me at all and I went flying in perfect-looking somersaults above Trulli, Alesi and co.

On entry to Turn One the car seems to be loose most of the time, but a short burst of gas brings you to Turn Two, a first gear right-hander which changes its characteristics a lot over the weekend. I always ask myself if I should take the kerbs hard on the inside or not, but most of the time I end up understeering past the apex, with no choice other than turning the car with the throttle. Of course, to be able to drive the car with the power you need to adjust the traction control as well as the diff – but I’m not sure if this is the quickest way. I’ll find out tomorrow, when I and some other poor blokes carry out the Friday vacuum-cleaner job.

The next section is a third gear right-left chicane, which is interesting because you have to be very aggressive over the kerbs, but as there’s no run-off on the exit you still need to keep your testosterone output under reasonable control. It could well be that the kerbs play havoc with the traction control, so a special t/c set-up for this corner might help your exit speed. Certainly too much understeer in this chicane might be comfortable but it’s also always too slow. Better to have it a bit loose on the rear here, my friends (and girlfriends).

The quick right-hander that follows, where Olivier Panis had his nasty crash, should be easy flat this year, but the left-hand chicane after it is a bit tricky. I always tend to brake really late here, but somehow I think braking a fraction earlier and less hard is quicker and more consistent. Driving like this allows you to carry more apex speed and also lets you position the car much more cleanly in the mid-corner. Braking really ultra-late and hard mostly takes this ability away. I still need to try various driving styles through this section, like on all other corners, but here especially.

Ok, now we drive down to Turn Nine, the chicane where braking is under the bridge and very bumpy. In fact, this chicane is all about the getting the braking right and not overdoing it on the entry. The exit is no problem at all as long as you enter smoothly. It’s all second or third gear, depending on your gear ratios.

Next is the hairpin, which, again, is all about braking. Ideally you set your car up, so that it allows you to brake into the corner, but that’s not so easy to do. In any case, it’s a late braking comer and the exit is very important, because a long straight follows. The exit depends a lot on how the car is under braking – that sounds strange if you don’t drive or engineer these cars – but if you suffer under braking the driver can’t position the car nicely on the apex and then the exits suffer a lot. So sometimes if you have exit problems you need to think not only about your driving style, but also about the braking performance of the car.

The last chicane, third gear, is quite famous, as many world champions have hit the wall at the exit. Certainly others have as well, including me. But why is that chicane so nasty? Well, as a surf dude I would compare it to the waves on the north shore of Kailua (in Hawaii): very nice-shaped waves, but if you get it wrong, man, that thing just crashes and smashes you down to the reef. It’s the same in this chicane. You get comfortable with carrying more and more speed into the chicane and hitting the kerb more and more, until at one point, very suddenly, the comfort vanishes and it all turns into a ‘concrete kiss’. But there’s no other way with that chicane, you can only try to carry a lot of speed and put the power down very early to have a good exit. Speaking about the exit, some drivers go really close to the wall, which in my opinion is 90 percent show rather than being necessary.

For any of you who don’t understand what I’ve been talking about here, but still need some “insider facts” when speaking about F1 in the pub down the road, just say, “Canada is a hard race for the brakes due to the stop-and-go layout of the track. It’s also very hard for the engine, as it has a high full-throttle percentage.” That’ll be enough for most people!”