When the engineers talk about Interlagos being difficult because of the altitude, they probably aren’t referring to the long climb up the stairs from the car parks to the paddock – but they could have been.
In many respects it would be useful to go back to the old system of beginning the season in Brazil and finishing it in Australia, if only because Albert Park is flat.
Catering in the paddock is first class and everyone tends to end the season a few kilos heavier than they started it (drivers excepted), so seeing a thousand or so team personnel, journalists, TV crews etc., huff and puff their way up flight after flight of metal stairs to get into the paddock is painful to watch (it’s even more painful to do).
It is worth it though, because once in the paddock, ramshackle and perched precariously on top of the hill, you can see most of the track laid out below you. All the best tracks feature elevation changes and Interlagos is definitely one of the best.
It’s something that never shows up on TV. Stand at the bottom of Eau Rouge in Belgium and you’re confronted with a wall of tarmac rising up in front of you. In Brazil it’s the opposite: at the first corner the track drops away into the Senna S.
“It’s not exactly a blind turn,” says Sébastien Buemi “but as you approach you drop down and then climb up to the braking point and then drop down again for the turn and the wall on the inside blocks the view a little bit, so it can be tricky.”
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Tricky for a driver but wonderful for a spectator because Turn One at Interlagos is possibly the best overtaking point on the entire F1 calendar – and a good argument for the engineers who says that overtaking in Formula One isn’t a question of tweaking the cars, it’s a question of tweaking the circuits.
Sam Michael, formally of Williams and now looking wrong in the McLaren garage drives that particular bandwagon: “For example look at Barcelona and Canada: we know that if we go race in Barcelona, we won’t see any overtaking; but you know that you can go to Montreal a few weeks later and see stacks of overtaking.
"That should highlight immediately to anyone with any common sense that those cars that couldn’t overtake in Barcelona are exactly the same as the ones that could in Montreal – yet on one track they overtake and on one they never overtake – that has to be because of the track layout.” He said that before the introduction of DRS incidentally, but even with it nobody was overtaking at the Circuit de Catalunya.
What Montreal has, of course, is a low speed corner, followed by the long backstraight, followed by another low speed corner into the chicane at the Wall of Champions. It’s not nailed on because of the vagaries of grip and line that need to be factored into the equation, but that’s the sort of layout which provides the best chance of seeing a move.
At Interlagos though, it’s even better. The drivers accelerate up the long, long climb from Jungcao all the way to Turn One and then need to find a braking point in the dips and swirls. There’s a passing opportunity on the inside or outside as the defensive line for Turn One tends to make the car in front vulnerable to attack at Turn Two.
'We can have a lot of fun this weekend' – Jenson Button
A couple of drivers today have expressed surprise that the DRS won’t be used on the main straight, but the point of DRS was to improve overtaking opportunities and the truth is that here they’ve never been lacking.
Of course, with the DRS zone coming into play after Turn Three, there’s a reasonable chance that anyone making a place in the Senna S is going to lose it again shortly after.
“That might happen,” says Felipe Massa, twice a winner at Interlagos. “If you overtaken on the main straight, which is the better place, without DRS then it’s possible you’re going to be overtaken again at the next one with the DRS.”
All in all it’s going to be interesting to watch. Since Red Bull came into the sport, there’s always been a Championship to win going to Interlagos. That isn’t the case this year but it doesn’t mean the race won’t be compelling. Jenson Button summed it up best yesterday: “The Championship’s won: we can have a lot of fun this weekend.”
Oh, and regarding those altitude problems: thinner air equals less power but also less drag. It mucks around with everyone’s aerodynamic sums…
Want More?
- Check out our event page for the Brazilian Grand Prix
- Video: Our Brazilian track record
- Read Sebastian Vettel's blog from Brazil
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