Formula One news
A lap of the Nürburgring with Adrian Sutil
09 July 2009One of the four German drivers who is looking forward to his home Grand Prix is Force India F1 driver Adrian Sutil. The German takes us a lap around the Nurburgring.
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The first corner, the Castrol S, is a tight hairpin downhill. It's quite easy to make some mistakes in braking there, but it's nice to reach this corner as there is a big grandstand just in front so there are a lot of fans and you can really feel the atmosphere.
Turn two is nothing spectacular, but it can be a little tricky at the start as everyone is trying to get ahead. Turn three is again downhill under braking and it's easy to lock up the front as it's a tight hairpin. You need to be right on the inside on the exit to have a good entrance to turn five and the long straight.
Turn six is a high speed left hander with a lot of camber on the road, which you find pretty much everywhere on this circuit. The change in the road means the balance of the cars is also changing quite a lot so it can be difficult to get exactly right.
From there we go into turn seven, which is a second to third gear corner depending on the line you are taking. You have to try to have a good exit into the Dunlop Kehre from here. It's the lowest part of the circuit, so really downhill and a long right hander, 200 degrees or more, with high banking so you need to carry the speed through and wait quite a long time until you can go back on the power. Then it's very important to be on the power as it's a long straight up the hill.
At the end of the straight we get down to the famous corners on this circuit, turns 11 and 12. Turn 11 is a fourth gear corner where you try and brake late but you don't want to be too late as the mid corner speed is important there. Then in turn 12 you're in a very similar situation - you need to be early on the brakes and then roll in and take a lot of speed into the corner, then wait and wait and go back on the power as soon as possible. This is one of the corners you can lose a lot if you don't know the style.
Then we go onto the last long straight with a little kink that we take flat out before going into the Veedol chicane, or turns 14 and 15. You can brake late as its uphill, so at around the 70 metre mark you'll brake down from 300kph to 90kph - the g-force under braking here is huge, but it's really nice. You want to take a lot of kerb in the chicane as usual but the car is moving around quite a lot so it's easy to lose or gain time there.
From there we go to the Coca-Cola-Kurve, which can be quite tricky as it's a long corner you need to carry a lot of speed through. You don't want to be too late on the brakes, but during the weekend you always try to brake later and later but it's not really the key to this track. Instead, you need to have good mid corner speed.
Then from turn 16 we go across the start finish line, taking the kerbs quite a lot on the exit to start another lap of the Nurburgring.
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