Racing weekends – when we participate rather than spectate – are few and far between. Occasionally we’re left with some silverware to show for it, but we always bring back epic stories…
Very little comes close to a racing weekend. One of my favourite dialogues in celluloid is from one of the best racing films of all time, Le Mans, in which Steve McQueen’s character says, “Racing is life. Everything else is just waiting!” By that rationale I only live about once a year, which is the frequency with which I typically find myself embroiled in the red mist of competition. Without getting too philosophical though, I will say this – truer words have rarely been spoken.
But while we’re on the subject of philosophy, I will say that sitting in a race or rally car at the start line is one of the most freeing experiences in life. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again – Nostradamus could have been right about World War III, but it wouldn’t matter. The only thing that matters when you’re in a race car is how to extract that extra tenth of a second. And when you’re on a racetrack jostling for position with 19 other racers – all of whom are also clouded by the inevitable red mist – it all becomes quite primal. It’s truly mano-a-mano!
But before we could race wheel-to-wheel, I had to get reacquainted with the VW Vento Cup race car and the Sriperumbudur racetrack. First the car – now I’ve been fortunate enough to race in both the Polo and the Vento Cup before, as Volkswagen has been kind (and/or foolhardy) enough to give me a race seat as a guest driver on more than one occasion in the past. And I can objectively say that, from day one, it’s been one of the most professionally run racing series in the country. And Volkswagen continues to ensure that it gets better-and-better each year. This year, Volkswagen has not only made further advancements to the car but they’ve also chosen a new tyre supplier.
Well, whatever they’ve done seems to have worked. The first generation Polo Cup car had a diesel engine and a manual gearbox. It was involving, tail happy under braking, and great fun to drive. The subsequent generation had a TSI petrol motor and a 7-speed DSG dual-clutch automatic gearbox with paddles to change gears. VW India felt that our young racers needed to be acquainted with steering-mounted paddles, since that’s what they’d be using if they progressed to racing in Europe. Then the Vento came in, and the car continued to evolve. And in its latest iteration, it feels like a proper race car. Whereas last year you had to carefully cajole it to turn into a corner, and then modulate the throttle on the way out to manage wheelspin, now you can be almost savage. You can be very positive on turn in, and hold the car through corners like you can scarcely imagine. It sticks, stays stuck, and then sticks some more! Just when you think it’ll run out of grip, you find that you can apply even more throttle or add more steering. You can now lean on the car and be aggressive, which is exactly what you want in a race car. And it’s fast too. We were lapping the Chennai track well under two minutes, which is the preserve of only the fastest road cars on the planet.
[caption id="attachment_76458" align="alignleft" width="642"] Volkswagen India, Motorsport Head, Sirish Vissa provides some words of encouragement on the starting grid, and also warns me not to bring his car back in pieces![/caption]
And what a track it is. It’s been several years since I’ve been around here and I had forgotten just how technical, fast and downright fun this track really is. You can use different lines in some corners, and you certainly have to pop your brave pills before attempting to carry proper speed through others – anyone who’s driven around here will know that I’m talking about C1. So pop my brave pills I did, as I attempted to get reacquainted with both the car and the track. After the first half-hour practise session, the car felt great and the track even better. But I still felt like I was finding my feet, so the fact that I ended up third fastest was a pleasant surprise. In the second session, I started pushing some more – sometimes too much as I ran out of room at the exit of some corners. It was an untidy session, but definitely a faster one. I finished fourth, so not too bad in the end.
I looked at some telemetry data, had a word with both Rayo (Rayomand Bannerjee, long-time driver coach, racer and friend) and Ranjit (lead engineer and development head since inception of the series in India), and sorted out where I was losing time and where I needed to be braver still. Needless to say, after both pep talks, I was pretty confident that I’d be able to find the speed I needed to go even faster in qualifying and put myself in a good position for the races.
For each race weekend (in this case, two 30-minute practise sessions, a 15-minute qualifying, and three races of 10-laps each) you’re allotted brand new MRF slicks to use as you see fit. Now tyres are precious, so most folks had conserved their tyres in the two practise sessions prior to qualifying by doing fewer laps than us guest drivers (myself, Raunak from Motoring and Debabrata from Top Gear). In quali, we were to put on a brand new set of tyres on the front and were instructed to give it our best right from the outset as the tyres would have optimum performance on their first hot lap – after which they would settle into a happy medium. Most of the top drivers did just that, as I attempted to learn from the lessons of telemetry from the day before. In doing so, I never really got into a rhythm and didn’t push as much as the evening before. As a result, I was slower than the previous session and ended up in a disappointing 7th on the starting grid for race one (and sixth for race three, which is determined using your second fastest time). To mix things up, the order for race two is determined by the finishing order of the first race – except that the top eight are made to start in reverse order (so the 8th place finisher is on pole, while the winner starts in 8th place).
The start of a race is typically the most eventful, and also the most fun as you’re inevitably fighting for position with 19 other like-minded adrenalin junkies. Before the start, time stops. But as soon as the lights go out, you go into instant hyperspace mode. Three or four cars cram into the first couple of corners, which would otherwise hold just one car at a time. You have to be very careful not to go careening into the car in front of you as you optimistically carry too much speed into the first few corners. You also have to be ready for the inevitable tap (sometimes shove) that’s likely to come from either alongside or directly behind. As we filtered through the first lap, it was status quo after some close racing. Over the next couple of laps, I lined up Jeet from Hyderabad in the unlikeliest of places. I was quicker than him in the first half of the lap, whereas I would lose out around the second half – as the line I was using (which I was used to from before) through the long sweeping right handers around the back of the circuit was obviously no longer ideal.
I was quicker through turns two and three. So, as I got a run on him out of the exit of three – which is a decreasing radius left – I squeezed past with three wheels on the dirt as we straight-lined the chicane leading to the next straight. Jeet was obviously caught by surprise, and had no choice but to concede the position. But he got a run on me through the sweeping right before the back straight and stayed in my tow till he dived past on the brakes going into the right-hander at the end of the straight. Good move! The two of us stayed nose-to-tail till Niranjan from Pune spun through the infamous C1 and gifted us both a spot each. He re-joined right behind and we made a three- car train all the way to the finish. One spot gained wasn’t much to show from the race, but it was pure unadulterated adrenalin-induced fun. This is what keeps me coming back for more.
I was to start 3rd in the next race. At the start, I drove around the outside of the two cars ahead of me through C1 and ended up in the lead after C2 – albeit very briefly. I carried too much speed into C3, ran wide at the exit and found myself in second spot almost immediately. Some select, unmentionable, phrases later, I found myself hunting down first place once again. But the hunter soon became the hunted, as championship leader Ishan from Hyderabad quickly glued himself to my rear bumper – and also gave me a love tap to ensure that I knew he was there. The race behind was even more eventful, and was peppered with yellow flags, safety car restarts and then eventually a red flag as Raunak from Motoring went head first into a barrier. In pure Bollywood fashion, apparently Keith from Goa went underneath him as the dust settled. Raunak, fortunately, was fine – but the car not so much!
[caption id="attachment_76449" align="alignleft" width="642"] Silverware at a racing weekend – the best anti-ageing treatment…[/caption]
Needless to say, the race was red flagged and we’d have another mad dash to the finish for the last three laps – but not before we spent another twenty minutes roasting in our cars on the grid while they cleared the carnage. With track temperatures approaching the half-century mark, it’s no surprise that I lost 3 kilos over the course of the weekend. But, back to the start – as I attempted to get around the outside of Pradeep through C1, he ran wide and took me with him. Ishan now had an open invitation, and took it. As he took the lead I managed to snatch second, again with three wheels on the dirt, and hold that position till the end of the race. And so I would at least have some silverware to show for the weekend.
In the final race, I started in sixth and got squeezed at the start from both sides as there were three cars side-by-side through C1 – so much so that my right-hand wing mirror got “gently” folded in by the car on my inside. You’re beginning to see a pattern developing here I’m sure.
The top six cars then drew a large gap from the rest of the field, and got down to some serious, but clean, racing – which was a pleasant change from the carnage of the previous race. I had finally sorted my line through the long right, my nemesis all weekend, and managed to carry sufficient speed though all the sections where I was previously losing time. I now found myself in 5th and closing in on Niranjan for 4th. I considered an Ishan-like love tap but thought better of it since I was a guest driver after all – not only was I not fighting for points, but I hadn’t exactly been invited by Volkswagen to dent the panels of their beautiful race cars. Soon enough, though, all those laps I had done in practise started catching up on me as my tyres finally started giving way. It started with oversteer, then understeer, and then snap oversteer. Niranjan caught and passed Keith, as I struggled to keep up. Keith, however, had his own problems. I could see him understeering off the road in front of me, but couldn’t do anything about it – right until the last corner, where Keith literally understeered off and virtually finished in the dirt, as I continued my attempt to get past in vain.
I have to compliment the entire VW Motorsport team, which always brings every car back from the dead after much red-mist induced carnage after virtually every race. The drivers, undeterred, sometimes shell out several lakhs in order to get back on the grid. So, as ever, what you need to be a race driver is simple – speed, resolve, sportsmanship and a lot of money! Fortunately, we’ve got a behemoth like VW India subsidising the cost of racing in a top-class series like the Vento Cup. I hope our young drivers continue to use this opportunity to hone their skills and further their careers – and I hope that VW continues to give me guest drives so that I can continue to feel young again.
Write your Comment