Wurzy's View of Magny-Cours

Posted on Tuesday 26 Jun 2007

There aren’t many guys in the paddock who list Magny-Cours on their ‘favourite circuit’ list, which might well be because it’s a bit too far away from a big international airport, or whatever. But I’ve always enjoyed driving there, although since Formula One teams agreed not to test there, for some reason I don’t understand, I haven't driven Magny-Cours for some time. One of the most interesting aspects of the circuit is that it makes a three-stop strategy possible, and I guess we’ll have someone having a go at it this weekend. The track’s grip level changes very quickly – as fast as Barcelona – or maybe even worse. This makes set-up work and tyre choice more difficult than in other places as the track can lose more than half a second’s-worth of grip within 30 minutes. If that happens in the middle of your tyre test, you can get lost really easily. Anyway, as for the circuit itself… after the start/finish line we have a sixth-gear flat-out left-hander with a double apex. This leads into the long right-hander in fourth gear. It’s a very quick entry into the corner and if you have good grip you can really carry a lot of speed into the corner. I think the biggest enemy at the turn in would be a loose rear. In the middle of the corner there’s usually understeer, so the key here is a neutral car, which is easy to say, but if you push your equipment hard, it’s not that easy to achieve. So, we’re still in mid-corner of turn two, feeding the throttle in gently to avoid unnecessary traction control or diff locking action, which can easily upset the balance of your car. At this point, we’re still far from the exit, with about 4.5g on the car and once we commit to the ‘pedal on the metal’ we have to keep it open. Lifting off here is a really bad idea! The straight that follows is not really long enough, but sometimes you can be lucky and have a go at the guy in front for the hairpin. But usually the hairpin is very slippery under braking and a bit bumpy. After the hairpin, we have a very quick right-left chicane. The entry is really quick, not in terms of speed but the way it happens. There’s not much braking before, and you have to just commit to it, so I enjoy it very much. It’s usually fifth gear. I don’t know the name of the next corner, but I think we could call it “Niki corner�, because it’s so tight, like all of us Austrians. Maybe that’s why I like it. Some of my driver chums should really feel comfortable here! But in fact it’s an easy corner to get the set up right for. It’s a mix of braking not too late and hard, so the car is not pitching too much, and you need to carry speed around the second-gear apex. At the exit you need to feed the gas in slowly – in fact I think the driver is better off in this corner driving the car with his feel for throttle, rather than relying on traction control. God, I’ve screamed in this corner a few times, because the car won’t do what you want it to do. Ok, the next chicane is in fifth and right-left, very quick and nice. After this you throw on the anchors into a slow second-gear right-hander, which is very slippery most of the time. Out of there it goes up to sixth into another slippery second-gear right-hander, then there’s a short burst of throttle to the last chicane, where you have to attack the kerbs more than some team bosses like to see. So, dear team bosses, chill out and let the drivers just jump that kerb and if we crash it and look stupid doing so, well then you have to pay for it! I remember once, Ron asked Kimi for his credit card number in advance, but he never crashed it – why should he, or me, or anyone of us?! Hang loose!