Pilot Episode

Posted on Friday 30 Nov 2007

Ever wondered how quick an RAF fighter pilot would be in a Formula One car? Wonder no more – F1 Racing and the Williams team have got together to make it happen in this world exclusive. Read on...

In English they’re called drivers, but in most other languages they’re pilots, or a phonetic version of that word. Pilotes in French or piloti in Italian, for example. So Formula One drivers are pilots and vice versa.Or are they?

We’re at Silverstone to find out whether this linguistic overlap applies on the track. On hand to drive a 2006-spec Williams FW28B is Graeme ‘Baggers’ Bagnall, an experienced Tornado GR4 fighter pilot from II Squadron at RAF Marham. His day job is to fly at speeds of up to 600mph, at heights as low as 250 feet.

Drivers and pilots clearly share something akin to a speed fetish, but that’s where the similarities end. Each is a specialist in his given area, and while Baggers may like his motors and drives an Audi RS4 on the road, he has never previously been on a race track. Talk of racing lines, understeer and oversteer is completely new to him. That’s where Alex Wurz steps in.

Alex recently flew with Baggers in a Tornado GR4 and has interrupted a holiday in Mallorca to help his pilot negotiate a dank and grey Silverstone National Circuit on four wheels. The first thing Alex does is drive Baggers around the course in Sir Frank Williams’ BMW 535 diesel. “I’ll show him the lines and tell him where to brake,” says Alex. “I’ll be very conservative as it will be slippery with all this drizzle.”

They do two laps with Alex driving, then swap places. Baggers then completes eight laps at the wheel, during which all we see from the pit wall is a lot of finger pointing as they zoom by. “It was very useful,” says Baggers when they return to the pit lane. “Without Alex’s tuition, I would naturally have turned in to the corners a lot earlier and held a tighter line at the exit. It must be something I’ve carried over from flying.”

But Baggers still isn’t allowed out in the F1 car. The next stage of his education is to drive a Räikkönen-Robertson Formula 3 car. The session begins well when he pulls out of the pits without stalling, but two spins in the tricky conditions knock his confidence for six. “The F3 car’s acceleration is more than I’ve ever experienced,” he says. “I’m now dreadfully nervous about driving the F1 car.”

Now, though, the time has come for him to go into battle. Chocks away! He climbs into the cockpit of the FW28B, dons his helmet and sits patiently while the mechanics buckle up the six-point harness. He stares straight ahead, seemingly oblivious to events around him. “At that point,” he says later, “I felt totally outside my comfort zone. There are fewer controls in the F1 car than I’m used to, but there is much less visibility, too. When the engine started, I was equally terrified and excited. There is such an urgency to that noise.”

Before Baggers pulls back the right-hand lever on the reverse of the steering wheel to select first gear, Wurzy leans into the cockpit to wish his man good luck. Baggers then closes his visor and pulls out of the garage into the pit lane. The electronics won’t allow him to select second gear until the car is doing a minimum of 62mph, so Baggers completes the length of the pit lane in first gear, the throttle held at about 10,000rpm. He tiptoes onto the circuit and, as if to prove that he isn’t afraid of the car, he floors the throttle when all the wheels are pointing straight. There are anxious faces on the pit wall as we watch a rooster tail of spray disappearing towards Maggotts.

Almost instantly, Baggers comes on the radio to express his delight at the car’s acceleration. He doesn’t realise, however, that comms with the pit wall remain open for 30 seconds each time, so we get another 20 of whooping and shouting before the airwaves fall silent again.

As a result of his spins in the F3 car, Baggers drives tentatively around the corners, but he gets increasingly confident with the throttle and the brakes. He is happy to take the 2.4-litre Toyota V8 to its 19,000rpm limit on the back straight. “On lap three, I made the decision to floor it and get the car into top gear,” he says. “When I did that, Armageddon was unleashed. I had to change from gear to gear so quickly and I had the car flat in top for a few seconds before lifting off.”

He completes half a dozen laps before coming in, and sits in the car for several minutes while the reality of his mission sinks in. He then gets out and unloads his thoughts and emotions to onlookers. “I could have gone a lot quicker through the corners,” he says, “but it was great to experience the acceleration and the brakes alone. They are quite incredible.”

So, in conclusion, does a pilot make a good driver? “The conditions weren’t easy and he kept the car on the track,” says Wurz. “He did a great job out there.” And the similarities between driving and flying? “They are two utterly different disciplines,” says Baggers. “To a degree, you need hand-eye co-ordination for both, but that’s where it ends. Having driven one of these cars, I have even greater respect for the drivers because they have to get everything right all of the time. I don’t know how they do that.” Not all of them get it right all the time, Baggers, which is what differentiates the pilots from the great drivers.

Wurz: Airman First Class
Charlie, Alex Wurz’s five-year-old son, is obsessed with aeroplanes, fighter planes in particular. It was he who persuaded Alex to fly in a Tornado GR4. “Charlie bet me I wouldn’t,” says Alex, “so I had to, didn’t I?”

Alex’s opportunity to ride shotgun in a Tornado came thanks to II Squadron, based at RAF Marham. Baggers, his pilot, had one clear brief: to make him sick.The 600-mile, two-plane sortie took Alex from Norfolk to the North Sea, up to Scotland and back. It lasted 1hr 20mins (and Alex wasn’t sick).

“It was fantastic,” says Wurz. “First we went to the RAF bombing range at Wainfleet. Then we headed to a small airfield west of Berwick-upon-Tweed, where we carried out a simulated bombing raid. Then we headed back over to the North Sea.”

On this second visit over the water, the planes had a race, accelerating from 300 to 650mph – burning one gallon of fuel per second. The pilots then jammed on the air brakes to slow the planes back to sanity. After that, it was back to base, where Baggers was ribbed for not making his passenger feel ill. “The secret,” says Alex, “is to have only two slices of bread for breakfast.”

Was Wurz a good passenger? “He was,” says Baggers. “He was very relaxed. He was a pleasure.” Charlie would have been proud.

Reproduced with kind permission from F1 Racing.