WEBTRACK

Click a key to change it.

• Two ways out. Qualifying is an empty circuit and one number: your quickest single lap. A grand prix is seven other cars, a standing start from the back row, and a set of tyres that will not last the distance.
• Grip is one number and you are always spending it. A corner takes what it needs first and the steering gets whatever is left, so at the limit the wheel stops answering. That is not a bug in the corner - it is the corner telling you to brake earlier.
• Brake in a straight line, then turn. The brakes are worth four and a half g and the corner is worth three: you can have all of one or all of the other, and asking for both at once gets you neither and a lot of grass.
• Pick the wing for the circuit, not for the car. The big one is a few km/h through every corner and forty off the top end; the small one is the same trade the other way round. Monza and Las Vegas are won on the straights, Monaco and Singapore are not won there at all, and on everything in between the medium wing is as good as either.
• Sit behind somebody on the straight. The tow is worth nearly half your drag and about twenty km/h. It is the only thing that will get you past a car as quick as yours, and it runs out at about forty metres.
• The kerbs are yours, the grass is not. Two wheels on the red and white costs you very little. Four wheels on the green costs you three quarters of your grip and most of your afternoon.
• They will shut the door on you. A rival with somebody in its mirrors moves across to cover the side you are coming down - part of the way, so there is always a way past, and only on the approach, because covering the inside of a corner it is already in means going off the outside of it. Make them commit, then go the other way.
• The clock is not the opponent. Seventy seconds to start and forty more under every gantry - it is there so a race that has gone wrong ends, not to race against. The other seven are the race.