👍 Good work, Holden! We all enjoyed it. Thanks for getting me along!
Well I just spent an interesting few laps following my mate around the track. I was in the problematic Peugeot, and he was driving my Caterham. The Pug clearly had an advantage in traction and gearing, as I was always gaining on him coming out of the corners. You could see the effects that a 4000rpm drop had when he changed gear (1st to 2nd especially), as he just went backwards in comparison to the Peugeot
. But he had a real advantage going into the corners and held good mid-corner speed. Yet as soon as that Pug had the hammer down, it was "au revoir"...
The lap would go like this: I was faster than him over the line. To avoid lift off oversteer on the double apex left, I would have to brake in a straight line approaching the footbridge, then brake again at the apex of the 2nd left in preparation for the right hander. By this time the Caterham (OK, it was my ghost, not my mate) was just ahead, but the Pug would shoot ahead just before the uphill left, where he had to change gear slooowwwly.
Through that tricky right-hander (Turn 3a on the map at the bottom of the page), the Caterham had the advantage again, the Pug then charging onto his tail along the short straight. A mistake at turn 4 had the Caterham run wide, and the Pug had the measure of him all the way to the crest of the hill before turn 6. Again that pesky little Caterham came back on the downhill entry into turn 6, but on the way out the Pug was unable to make much headway, having to wait until the hairpin before his traction and gearing could demonstrate their advantages.
From then on in, the French rally weapon held its advantage, unless I made a mistake, and by the final hairpin, the lap was in the bag. Such different cars, yet they do such similar times...
(phew!)
👍
. But you can still see the numbers for the right one 
.
).
