Newsgroup: it.sport.formula1.moderato
Titolo: Vi interessa il circuito?

www.mclaren.co.uk
 sezione SAP US Grand Prix Special
E se a qualcuno interessa ed ha voglia di tradurselo...
La guida secondo Martin Brundle
In six months' time, the F1 circus will descend on
Indianapolis, the mecca of American motorsport.
Mercedes ChampCar star and former McLaren
racer Mark Blundell shows us the way round
Words Stuart Codling
Photography Regis Lefebure
Wouldn't it be great if, a few minutes before 2pm EST on September 24, the
preamble to the first United states Grand Prix in nine years climaxes with a
rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner, followed by the command: 'Gentlemen -
start your engines'? They're standard fitments of any great US motor race, like
apple pie and turkey at Thanksgiving. So what better way to kick off the first
grand prix at Indianapolis, the home of US motor racing?
The home crowd will need that reassurance of the familiar, because F1 will come
as something of a culture shock. The cars will be driving the wrong way round -
clockwise - for a start. And the F1 drivers will have to adapt quickly to the
unique challenges of the GP circuit, which mixes a long full-throttle charge
around part of the famous banking with a return stretch on a newly-built infield
track.
When Mark Blundell shakes your hand, he exerts 200mph turn-in grip. With
experience of oval racing in the CART championship, as well as several years in
F1 - including 1995 for McLaren - the PacWest Reynard-Mercedes driver can tell
us exactly what F1 can expect when they roll up to Indy in September.
"There are going to be a few different trains of thought on set-up," he says as
we prop ourselves against the wall at the crown of Turn 13's banking. "We've got
nine degrees of banking here, and it's a long corner. The drivers will have to
be flat out, and they're going to have to carry that speed off the exit and all
the way down the straight.
"If they set up the car as they would for a conventional road course, they may
not be able to produce enough grip mechanically to go flat out all the way
round. That'll cost them speed down the straight and make them vulnerable into
the best overtaking spot - the sharp right at Turn 1. But if they set up the car
with cross-weight and staggered suspension geometry for good mechanical grip on
the banking, it'll spoil the handling on the rest of the corners." Nine degrees
is not a gradient on the scale of somewhere like Brooklands or Monza but, when
you stand at the top of it, you know it's there. You don't need steep banking on
a circuit this big. The oval is 2.5 miles long, enough to accommodate the Indy
Hall of Fame, the pit complex and part of a golf course. You need anamorphic
spectacles to appreciate the sheer breadth of this place - it's as if it was
built to be viewed in widescreen.
The F1 cars will run clockwise, against the usual flow of traffic at Indy.
They'll cross the famous 'yard of bricks' - a memento of the circuit's early
years when the track surface was paved with 3.2 million bricks - on the
start/finish straight before braking hard and slicing right onto the new infield
circuit.
"This is great," says Mark. "It's like the first corner at Monza. They'll arrive
three abreast after the start, and there's only room for one on the racing line
once you get in. There's also a bit of camber, which will make braking tricky.
During the race they'll be slowing from about 200mph - a few of them are going
to be using the run-off, that's for sure."
Turns 1 and 2 stand just far enough apart to escape being lumped into one and
called a chicane. From there the track loops back on itself twice, a quick
shimmy around the trees where the real yahoos would set up shop and not come
down until they'd run out of beer or the Indy 500 had finished.
"It seems quite wide as you stand here," says Mark, "like you might get a bit of
flow, but once you get in a car it'll be just one line through Turns 2, 3, 4 and
5. Again, it's got that Monza feel with all the trees here, but they might have
to cut down one or two that are close to the track."
The last corner before the middle straight is a double-apex right that's
trickier than it looks. This is where anyone who's been held up during the early
part of the infield can take a punt.
"If someone's brave," says Mark, "they can look at getting on the inside here,
or get on the tail of the car in front and set themselves up for a try up the
straight. It's a double bite of the cherry."
The straight is wide enough to land a plane on, but goes tight and turns sharply
to the left as you bear down upon the Hall of Fame's car park. Should catch a
few people out as they try to dive past on the brakes.
A pair of slow hairpins follow, enabling the sponsors' logos to wink at the
cameras as they pass. Spectator access being a priority in the US, the
organisers have installed some tall earth banks here which they intend to
reserve as family viewing areas.
The penultimate infield corner is possibly the most deceptive: another
tight-looking right-hander, but it opens out quickly.
"This is a bit different," says Mark. "It'll have been single file through the
last two corners, then you have this short straight, and before you know it
you're through the corner and building up a lot of speed."
From this point until they get back to Turn 1, the drivers' aim is to have the
throttle mashed into the floor. This whole complex, as the cars surge back onto
the oval from the infield, is as close as modern F1 circuits get to the classic
Peraltada bend at the Autodromo Rogriguez, former home of the Mexican GP.
"This is slightly downhill," Mark continues, "and there are a few undulations on
the surface. Just after you rejoin the oval circuit there's a ridge where the
gradient starts. That's going to upset the cars, and they'll be going pretty
quickly. The pit entry is here, so if anyone's decelerating to go in there
they'll have to be careful to split off neatly."
The pit entry - for Indy Race Car and NASCAR races it's the pit exit - is a
long, narrow lane that traces the inside of Turn 13 and is separated from the
track by a bank of grass. In the grand prix it's going to be like a bobsleigh
ride, with the drivers striving to stay off the brakes until the 50mph speed
limit, set just before the garages, makes deceleration an urgent necessity.
With no 'garage culture' in the US (normally, cars pull up by a wall and the
crew vaults over to work on them), the Indy organisers are building a 36-garage
complex, with hospitality suites, for the GP. They've also pulled down the old
control tower, here since 1957, and are erecting a new one - with a
state-of-the-art media centre for the world's press. It's taken a multi-million
dollar investment to get this far and there's a way to go yet. But Indy is in
this for the long haul. Come September the kerbs will be painted, the new
garages slick and glossy, the gravel traps neatly combed and the turnstiles
open - for the first of many US GPs at Indy.
--
Nick
«Briatore? Uno dei volti più onesti e semplici della F1 moderna.»
             Paolo AT Home - 16/9/2000, 17:22 - it.sport.formula1.moderato

 cameras as they pass. 
Questo e' l'aspetto piu' brutto della F1 moderna.
Luca

 un gran casino tra questi due piloti ... :)
Ops... Vabbè, ho letto di sfuggita una M e una B, il primo che mi è
venuto in mente era Martin Brundle...
;-)
Per il resto il pezzo non l'ho nemmeno letto.
