Robert Kubica: “We have some tough competitors around us”
Suzuka is your favourite circuit of the year. Why? It’s hard, it’s the most challenging circuit and it’s very, very fast. If you count the number of really high-speed corners, taken in fourth gear or above, I think it’s the most of any circuit on the calendar. The first sector is incredible: the Esses are like a rollercoaster, flipping the g-forces from side to side through very long corners, and it’s tough to keep the correct line, especially because if you make a mistake in one corner, you carry it for a long time through the next corners. Plus, there are a couple of low-speed corners, and the chicane where you have very heavy braking and it’s possible to overtake.
Why do you think we saw so many mistakes last year? Partly it was down to the weekend: all Friday was wet, on Saturday morning people needed to do some laps, and then they pushed to the limit only in qualifying. But the biggest point is that you have a very small margin for mistakes in Suzuka because there are no tarmac run-off areas, so as soon as you make a mistake, you’re in the gravel. Often, when you’re outside the car you don’t realise that the drivers are making mistakes, because you see them put a wheel over the kerb and on the run-off area, then they come straight back on the track. But Suzuka doesn’t work like that: if you go off with one wheel, you don’t come back.
Is that requirement for total precision what you enjoy? Of course. I like more this kind of track, this way of driving and this way of racing.
In Singapore, you qualified and raced behind the three teams battling for the championship. What level of performance do you expect in Suzuka? I think it will continue along similar lines, and we have some tough competitors around us. Of course, we will try our best, but I don’t think the end of the season will necessarily be the easiest one for us. We do not have big new developments coming, so it will depend a lot on how much development other people bring to the car. This will have a big influence on where we end up and how good our end to the season will be.
Vitaly Petrov: “I need to show the team what I can do in the final races”
Vitaly, sum up your feelings after your first F1 night race in Singapore… It was a challenging weekend for me and frustrating not to get the result we could have done. The start of the race was very good and I moved up to tenth, and it was a good tactic by the team to call me in when the safety car came out. After my pit stop I was in a good position with Webber and Glock just in front of me, but then there was the incident with Hülkenberg, which cost me three positions and destroyed my race. Without this I could have finished maybe eighth.
How have you spent the time between Singapore and Japan? Did you go back to Europe? Yes, I came back straight after the race. I did some training as usual and then I came to the UK to visit the factory for a few days to meet with my engineers and discuss what happened in Singapore and to learn from it. Of course, we have also been doing our preparation for Suzuka and the engineers have given me some data from last year to look at.
Are you excited about going to Suzuka, one of the classic tracks on the calendar? I know it’s a very famous circuit and it’s nice to go there for the first time. It’s hard for me to say more because I really don’t know what to expect. It will be a totally new experience for me, but I know already from talking with my engineers that it’s quite a tricky circuit. I hope the car will be good there, but the start of the lap looks very quick and challenging with lots of changes of direction. If you get one corner wrong, you really suffer in the other corners. I think it’s also important we make sure the f-duct works well there because a lot of the lap is full throttle and the straights are quite long.
You’re coming to the end of your first season as an F1 driver. Are you happy with how things are going? The recent races have not been easy for me, and I think it’s down to my lack of experience and some bad luck. I’m working hard and improving, especially with my feedback and understanding the car, but this has not been translated into the results. Now I need to show the team what I can do in the final races and show that I deserve to stay here next year.
Robert’s Guide to Suzuka
Everybody knows Suzuka and all fans of motorsport love it. It’s also my favourite circuit because it’s clearly the best track – the track that gives the driver the greatest challenge. I’ve only been to Suzuka twice before, but every time you go there it feels very special.
It’s what I call a ‘proper’ track, and last year we saw lot of drivers getting caught out in qualifying. And if you do go off the track, there’s very little run-off area. It’s important to have confidence in the high-speed corners because if your confidence is down you can lose a lot of lap time. It’s one of the most challenging tracks, but when you get it right it gives you the most satisfaction.
The start of the lap through the first six or seven corners is really challenging. If you make a mistake in one corner, you suffer through the next few corners because you lose the line. Consistency is very important and you have to somehow carry as much speed as you can through these corners.
Turns eight and nine, which make up the Degner Curve, are quite tricky. The first part is short, but it’s quite narrow, so you come from a very wide part to a very narrow part. You try to bring a lot of speed because, even though the next corner is 60 or 70 metres away, the short apex invites you to carry a lot of speed. You need to be careful because there’s a really dangerous kerb on the inside, but it’s important to get really close to it. If you touch it or bottom out there, you lose the car, go off the track and hit the wall, just as two cars did last year. So it’s a very tricky place; the sort of corner you are approaching and feeling that something might go wrong.
Another difficult part of the lap is turn 13, the entry to Spoon Curve, where it’s important to get the line right because you want to get on the power very early. It narrows and it’s also off camber. It’s unbelievable. There is always something special in this corner, but it’s difficult because the car always wants to understeer. Apart from the last corner, the chicane, the whole track is unbelievable.
130R is taken flat, but it may not be as easy now with a heavy car full of fuel. For overtaking, the final chicane is definitely the best place to get alongside someone under braking.
The challenge of Suzuka
Ask any driver on the grid to rank their favourite circuits and you can be sure that Suzuka will appear pretty near the top of most lists. It’s one of the old-school tracks; a rollercoaster ride that all the drivers relish, as well as being a technical challenge for the engineers. The reason why the drivers rave about the place is probably because it’s so tricky to master. No other track, with the possible exception of Spa, can boast such a spectacular range of corners and hooking up the perfect lap always gives the drivers a real buzz.
The famous sequence of ‘S’ curves, from turns three to seven, stretches for 850 metres and is perhaps the most critical and demanding section, as Robert’s race engineer, Simon Rennie, explains: “The drivers have to work really hard through the first sector because each corner flows into the next. So they need the car to be consistent and predictable, with a good change of direction. If they get the line wrong through turn three, they will be compromised for turns four, five, six and seven. This sequence only last for about 14 seconds, but it’s easy to lose half a second of lap time with just a small mistake. The best approach is to moderate the throttle, largely in fifth gear, with just a tiny touch of the brakes in turns four and six.”
The challenging first sector confirms that local knowledge is crucial at Suzuka, which is why it’s a tough place for a rookie to get up to speed. “It’s probably more difficult to learn than most of the new circuits because there are no straightforward corners, the track is quite narrow, and it’s easy to make a mistake,” confirms Vitaly’s race engineer, Mark Slade. “Getting the car balance right is also more of a challenge at Suzuka because it’s so technically demanding, and if you don’t find the sweet spot with the set-up there’s a bigger penalty compared with other tracks.”
While the start of the lap is twisty, the end of the lap is quite the opposite. It may feature turn 15, the legendary 130R, but it’s a watered down version of the original corner and no longer presents the same challenge for the drivers. “130R will be taken flat for every lap of the Grand Prix with an apex speed around 305 km/h,” says Simon. “Even if you’re tucked up close behind another car, it’s still easily flat, and it shouldn’t pose any problems with heavy fuel either. So the drivers will be on full throttle from the exit of turn 14 all the way to turn 16 – that’s 1.2 km in 16 seconds.”
130R may be a shadow of its former self, but it still represents the fastest corner on the circuit and the drivers will experience around 3.5G of lateral acceleration for nearly two and half seconds with a peak at 4G. It’s these high-speed corners that make Suzuka especially tough on tyres, which is why Bridgestone is supplying the harder end of their range this weekend (the hard and soft compounds).
“There is a lot of lateral loading on the tyres, which increases the wear rates,” explains Mark. “The braking and acceleration loads are also significant and there aren’t many parts of the lap where you’re braking in a straight line, so the drivers are really leaning on the tyre while braking. The nature of the tarmac is the final contributing factor because it’s very grippy and abrasive, which leads to high degradation.”
