The story of two bad wrecks and how experience teaches that managing expectations is key for track days (and even more important for wheel-to-wheel racing).
This is a spectacular case of how not to promote a much-anticipate race. After just finishing it's 8 season of around-the-world racing, Formula E has endured multiple debacles throughout it's growing phase (Miami, Montreal, & London to name a few), so it's not entirely surprising the young Series fell victim again to over-promises and under-deliveries.
Passing through 4th gear, the shift lights are indicating I’d better shift to 5th gear quickly. With 5th gear engaged I tell my right foot to stay on the floor through the left hand kink that is looming ahead. As I turn-in the rear gets light which is quickly followed by counter-steering and telling myself, “We need to make that better.”
At the start of a race or track session we see drivers weaving back and forth across the track. Ask a driver why all the swerving and you’ll hear, “I’m getting the tires up to temperature.” Well, I don’t think that’s what’s happening. Most of the tread surface is cooling, not heating. And, since rubber is a poor conductor of heat, very little of the frictional heating on the tread surface gets into the bulk of the tire.
Everybody that hasn’t been on track at Circuit Of The Americas yet is foaming at the mouth, and everybody that has is in a daze from how amazing, fast, and technical this brand new, $400 million dollar facility is. I’ve been around it a couple of times over the last few months, and though I’ve probably got 20 laps on it I still don’t have a firm grasp on things…but I do think I know a good start to running a quick lap, and here it is.