| Bragging rights, those are what I’ve earned. The next time I’m with friends/family watching Formula 1 on teevee, you can be sure I will claim to have driven one of those very cars... fast! Very, very fast! At dizzying speeds actually accompanied by all the physical sensations a Formula 1 car offers. At a circuit owned by F1 supremo Mr E itself, in a configuration equivalent of Monaco with all its snaky twists and turns. A couple of months ago Sirish was invited to participate in the Renault Formula 1 Road Show in Johannesburg, with a ‘Feel It’ experience thrown in at Kyalami, a former Formula 1 venue. He was to discover just what a Formula One car was all about, to gauge first hand what purpose-built, race-ready, million-dollar engines, aerodynamics, suspension and electronics really deliver. He was to drive one of the fastest mahcines on the planet. Except he didn’t. The ‘Feel-it’ never happened and all he did was speak with Nelson Piquet Jr, the Renault F1 engineers and get on the next flight home. When opportunity knocked on my door, I left it open wider than the Grand Canyon. Anyone can drive a fast car very fast. I can and have driven supercars and open-wheeled formula cars really fast. But making a formula car sing a banshee aria at the very edge of its limit requires a set of skills only a few chosen mortals possess. Of whom I am not one. I am an above average driver with some skills acquired from years of driving and testing. This enables me to drive much quicker than the lay driver, judiciously. I am careful to maintain a safe balance. I have my limitations, I know. Yet I have dreamt of being at the wheel of an F1 car. And competence be damned, I was about to realise my dream! Not so fast though. One does not just get into a Formula 1 car and zoom up, up and away. No, thorough instruction or indoctrination is crucial for the uninitiated. This exercise for me started with several laps in a Formula Renault; supercar quick but without the safety net of ABS, traction control and ESP which generally keep things in check when exuberance turns into overexuberance. It was thrilling yet hairy. |
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| Renault R24 Formula One Bertrand Bert Bertie F1 Paul Ricard Circuit |
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