Formula One represents the highest echelon in motor racing. No vehicle on earth can go quicker around a track than a Formula One car, and everything else, including Super Bikes, simply pale in comparison to a Formula One car’s ability to accelerate, brake, and stick to the road.
The opportunity to drive a Formula One car is exclusively reserved for the top twenty racing drivers in the world, unless like a Pedro de la Rosa or a Giorgio Pantano, you possess the financial wealth to buy a drive on one of the ‘power privateer’ teams.
However, short of buying a seat on the Minardi team, there is only one other way into the seat of a Formula One Car, and it’s a damn sight cheaper than floating a struggling Formula One outfit. The former Formula One team, AGS, now offer mere mortals the opportunity to drive an AGS Ford Cosworth Formula One car around the Circuit Le Luc in the south of France. So if you can afford the airfare to France and about €300 per lap for a minimum of four laps, you can now experience the thrill of screaming around a track in a Formula One car at full throttle.
Considering that most F1 junkies would willingly part with essential body parts in exchange for a Formula One drive, I eagerly parted with my hard earned cash in order to fulfil a lifelong dream.
Arriving at the AGS Racing School at the Circuit Le Luc, located in the most beautiful part of southern France, I found myself in a diverse group of nine men and one woman, all wanting to experience the drive of a lifetime.
We spent the first part of the morning in the lecture room where our English-speaking instructor covered the basics of driving a single-seat racing car. By midmorning we were out on the track where we completed 25 laps in an AGS Formula Opel single seater. The Formula Opel is very similar to the Formula One car in terms of seating, gearing and steering, and therefore essential to making the most of your laps in the Formula One car. The Formula Opel’s gearbox is a smaller version of the one used in the Formula One car, and mastering the gear changes without the help of syncros is by far the most daunting task in both cars. The Formula Opel is great fun and you don’t pay anything extra for the 25 laps in these nippy little cars. Also included in the price is the use of a full set of racing gear, including helmet, overall, gloves and boots.
After lunch we were declared sufficiently prepared to attempt the taming of the beast – the 650 bhp, 3,5 litre, V8, AGS Ford Cosworth Formula One racer.
The AGS cockpit was designed for Gabriella Tarquini, a man about two-thirds my size, making it nothing less than a tight fit for an eighty-something kilo hefty like myself. The tiny gear lever mounted on the right-hand inside cockpit wall, just an inch away from the steering wheel, felt awkward at first, but the precision of the Hewland Gearbox made up for the difficulty in performing even the most basic arm movements inside the small cockpit. Pedal travel on all three pedals is about one-tenth that of a normal car, indicating that this car was built to go flat out only. Only problem is that you also have to get the car off the line, and that is near impossible with so little travel on the pedals. The chances of either stalling the car or burning the clutch seemed to be higher than getting away smoothly, so I decided that burning a little rubber would do the least amount of harm to both my ego and the car.
Securely strapped into the seat, I had a fleeting memory of watching Gabriella Tarquini race the very car in which I was now sitting in the 1991 Grand Prix at Monza. I was as excited as a little boy who just got his first bicycle. And bloody nervous too!
The next moment I heard the brief whine of the portable pneumatic starter, and then all hell broke lose with 650 horses shuddering behind me, sending a kidney-rattling vibration through the monocoque chassis, even more intimidating than the wail of the engine itself.
Revs up. Slowly let go the clutch. Revs begin to drop. More gas. Watch the wheel spin. I’m off. So far so good. By the end of the short pit lane exit I’m already on the rev limiter. Find second gear. Keep the revs up. Onto the straight. Pedal to the metal. I’m hit from behind with a force so great that the wind is forced from my lungs. Not by another car, but by 650 galloping horses. Third gear. The same tremendous shove in the back. First corner coming up. Brake hard. I get jerked back by the seat belts like I’m at the end of a bungee jump, except that this bungee cord has zero elasticity! But thank God for seat belts otherwise this horse would have thrown me and galloped over me. Oops! I’ve underestimated the stopping power of this beast. I’m still fifty meters away from the corner. Find second gear and slowly accelerate to the corner. Hope nobody saw me out-breaking myself some fifty meters from corner. But hell, how was I to know this thing stops even quicker than it accelerates!
Lap five of my fifteen laps and I’m beginning to get the hang of it, that is apart from the rocket-like acceleration and bungee-like braking! Acceleration in this car is like a tidal wave of power. It just doesn’t stop. With no evidence of lag as I go through the gears, even changing into fifth gear is like flooring a Ferrari F40 in first gear. This car seems to be able to continue accelerating into infinity – it seems to be limited only by the gears and the length of the straights on the track.
Lap ten and I’m really beginning to get a handle on the beast, snap changing through the gears and late breaking into the corners. Acceleration and braking still surprise me. Every time I go to fifth gear the power surge is such that I can swear I’ve selected third gear, but I feel confident enough to begin to explore the car’s lateral acceleration through the corners. It’s hopeless. Even at 50 percent of the car’s potential lateral acceleration I’m pulling so much lateral G’s that I feel as if I’m about to be flung from the car. And yet the car remains on the road like it’s on rails. So I give up on trying to be a hero and on my last four laps I settle for pushing the envelope on straight-line acceleration and braking.
I finally pull into the pits after fifteen laps of sheer exhilaration, convinced that there must be a bumper sticker on the rear wing reading ‘Orgasm Donor’.
What is the moral of my story? Simple. Formula One drivers are superheroes! Any driver who willingly commits himself to being strapped into – actually onto – a modern Formula One V10 engine with 900 horsepower on tap and then drives it around a track at full throttle for 70 laps is nothing less than a superhero.
I am no superhero, but I got a glimpse of what it takes to be a formula one driver. And after having driven a Formula One racing car over a mere fifteen laps and exploring only half of the car’s true potential, I have gained a new respect and admiration for Formula One Drivers, from Michael Schumacher on the front of the grid to the little known driver in the Minardi at the back of the grid.