“I knew the car from testing, but I didn’t know the track so much. It was pretty straightforward as I learn tracks quite quickly” explained Nico. “There’re a lot of straight lines and simple corners, but there’s also a few places that are a bit technical such as the Porsche Curves. You don’t usually get to see the Porsche Curves without much traffic! They’re really quick. The walls are really close. It’s just fun to push the LMP1 through there because you feel a lot of down-force.
The low-speed corners are a bit more tricky. Arnage is one (corner) where you always think you can brake later and when you do it you just go straight! It’s very tricky in the wet.
The esses after the Dunlop Bridge are pretty cool and kind of remind me of Suzuka a little bit. Indy One and Two are mega; we arrive really fast and you have the banking, first right, then left so it’s really cool to have banked corners like that”.
eRacing magazine spoke with Nico at the Australian Grand Prix after he’d already sampled Porsche’s 919-Hybrid during winter testing, during which time he still believed Formula One had the edge in high speed corners. Traction out of corners however left a completely different impression on the young German.
“It’s close (in the cockpit) so you’re in a different environment. It’s a different feeling; you don’t have the wind or the noise” says Nico. “No helmet lifting or buffeting! From a driving point of view you have four-wheel drive and traction-control and that changes the game. Having said that of course you need to adapt and change your driving style a little bit, but at the end of the day it’s a race car that needs to be driven fast.
Image: Adrenal Media