Wurz of wisdom: Europe
Alexander Wurz, the third driver of the Williams F1 Team, talks about the Nürburgring, the venue for the upcoming European Grand Prix. Wurz has lived close near the track for two years and knows it like his pocket.
"I lived for two years at the Nürburgring, just 500 metres away from the track in a small house. It was very idyllic and romantic, but if you spent too much time there it was almost enough to make you suicidal. There’s a strange climate up there – one day you sweat and the other day you freeze your balls off – if you have any, of course. While we’re on the subject, the old Nordschleife required more balls than the new one – I raced on it in a 24-hour race once and it’s a really amazing circuit.
The new one requires a well-balanced car and of course a good set of sticky tyres. From a driving point of view, the ‘new’ Nürburgring is quite a strange track. In the first sector, for example, you can easily overdrive the car. It can feel very quick when in fact you’re quite slow through the modified first few turns that are now called the Mercedes arena. On the other side once you rejoin the older part of the GP track with the quick downhill right-hander followed by the third-gear Ford corner which turns right after some small bumps, you can nail it quite aggressively and win time.
Then we have the Dunlop 180-degree corner on the bottom of the hill, a corner you enter very directly, as the camber of the track compresses the car a bit on the inside line and gives you extra grip for braking. In the middle of this corner you feel sorry for your left front tyre and hope that your test driver hasn’t chosen a tyre that grains too easily.
The exit is hard for the car in terms of traction control settings, as well as differential locking on exit. The chicane up the hill should be flat this year I guess. My favourite corner on the track, the corner I mostly set my car up for, is the right-hander before the back straight. It’s quite quick and you have to be gentle with the steering and the car, loading the tyres up very slowly on the outside. The set-up should get rid of understeer, so you can carry an awful lot of speed. If you have understeer, it won't be your favourite corner, as you then have to start chucking the car in aggressively, using artificially aggressive load transfer to get the front into the corner. If you’re in this situation, once you’ve somehow forced the front into the corner, the understeer will come back even more in mid-corner, making you dreadfully slow, as you also have also to wait longer until you can put the pedal to the metal.
The last but least favourite corner is that Mickey Mouse chicane before the pit entry. The chicane designer should be called into court for this design. It’s second gear and the only thing to do is hope the guy in front of you didn't put loads of grass or dirt onto the track just before you.
Over the past few seasons McLaren have been strong at the ’ring, but Williams scored a podium last year, too, so let’s see how we go."
