Hot Lap - Adelaide Street Circuit
by Stone Borthers Racing
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Hot Lap - Adelaide Street Circuit by Stone Borthers Racing |
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Marcos Ambrose, takes us on a hot lap of one of the most demanding tracks in the Championship.
You flash over the start finish line in fifth gear at about 220kph.
You brake at the end of pit lane and look for the outside curb so you can virtually use it as a "ski jump".
That sets you up to keep your foot flat for the left hand kink out of the chicane - this can certainly be a little tricky on older tyres.
The next section is all second gear as four corners virtually become one - it just all flows.
You need to be careful because there is a lot of road camber on the exit of each corner and the car tends to want to slide around at the rear - this is a section where you can make up a lot of time.
The run on to the back straight is relatively simple and as you hit sixth gear and a top speed of around 230kph you charge towards the most challenging corner in Australia.
This high-speed right-hander allows you no vision on the entry or the exit, with only concrete walls to stop you if you make a mistake (ask Paul Radisich about 2002).
It's then heavy on the brakes and back through the gears for the hairpin which is a very slow, sometimes first gear, corner.
This is a prime passing spot, but it is difficult to get the power down as quickly as you would like.
The left-hander behind the paddock area is tricky because it tightens up on you on the way out and it's easy to run into the wall on the outside if you are going too fast.
You are then back on to the circuit proper and the surface smooths out. The right-hand kink before the last hairpin is also difficult because you are braking right the way through it and it is easy to lock a wheel - that is certainly bad for business, especially on the opening lap of a 250km event.
It is important to get in and out of the hairpin as smoothly as possible to ensure a quick run on the front straight where you start it all over again.
In total we complete about 24 gear changes per lap for a total of around 1872 for the 78 laps of each 250km race.