KARUN CHANDHOK ON HISTORIC MONACO
Our man in the F1 pitlane returns to the principality, this time for demo laps at the F1 historic event, behind the wheel of the Williams that Senna had his first ever F1 test in. Talk about living the dream!
Karun lives his dream of driving the Monaco GP winning Williams FW08c driven by Keke Rosberg in 1983
THE PHONE RANG A few months ago and it was Jonathan Williams asking “How do you fancy doing a demo at the Monaco Historic in the Williams FW08c?”. Drive at one of my top three favourite circuits, in a car that took one of the most memorable Monaco Grand Prix victories? “Yes please!”
The circuit at Monaco is a bit divisive when it comes to driver’s opinions. People like Nelson Piquet hated it while others absolutely loved it. I’m very firmly in that second camp. I’ve been very fortunate to race at Monaco in the World Series by Renault, GP2 and Formula 1 and along with Suzuka and Le Mans, the circuit holds a special place in my heart. Every corner is unique and the streets of the principality are steeped in history. Ste Devot, Casino Square, Mirabeau, Portier, Tabac and La Rascasse all mean something special to any true fan of the sport.
I’ve had plenty of highs and lows there myself. Finishing on the podium in GP2 in 2008 remains one of my most treasured memories, while having the driveshaft fail when I was leading comfortably a year later with just 8 laps to go still hurts. I suppose narrowly avoiding being decapitated by Jarno Trulli in 2010 is probably not something I want to remember too often either!
The Williams FW08c is a very special car for two reasons – (a) Keke Rosberg won the Monaco Grand Prix in spectacular style in 1983 and (b) a young Brazilian called Ayrton Senna da Silva had his first ever Formula 1 test in this car. I’ve been lucky to have driven the FW08c on a few occasions and the short wheel base car with the very user friendly Cosworth DFV engine was always great fun to drive. Driving it at Monaco though was going to be very special.
The organisers had given us two slots over the weekend to demonstrate the car with some others from McLaren and Lotus. For me to share a circuit with drivers like Mika Hakkinen, Riccardo Patrese and Eddie Irvine who were winning Grand Prix when I was still a fat teenage school kid in India was pretty damn cool on its own.
The best way I can explain the difference between a modern Grand Prix car and one from the early 1980s is that it’s like going back from a digital world to an analogue one. You really have to drive the cars from the past. There are no electronics to help you – no fly-by-wire throttle pedals, no trick engine maps to help your power delivery, no brake by wire systems to control the wheel locking and balance the brake pressure, no power steering, no electronic differentials to assist the balance of the car at every phase of the corner. Oh, and of course, no paddle shift gear selection system to help you keep both hands on the wheel, which is especially useful at a circuit like Monte Carlo!
As I climb into Keke’s seat, the first thought I have is just how bloody uncomfortable it is. This is a generic fibre glass seat made out of a fixed mould and means that you’re sitting pretty much bolt upright. Nowadays, the drivers spend days making seats that are millimetre perfect to
ensure that they’re as comfortable in the car as they would be on their sofas. How on earth these drivers drove around the bumpy streets of Monaco for 2 hours like that I have no idea. Hard as nails was Keke.
The next thing that becomes immediately apparent is just how far forward in the car I’m sitting. I really don’t want to miss that braking point going into Mirabeau as it will certainly mean a trip to the Princess Grace Hospital with my ankles not feeling great! When the guys at Williams Heritage stripped the car down and weighed the ‘monocoque’, it was only 27 kilos. Basically, I was sitting in a big tin can held together by some rivets.
The engine fires up and as I head out onto the track, all those thoughts go away. No longer am I thinking about the fact that this is a highly valuable – and dangerous – piece of F1 history that’s been wheeled out of a museum for me. Suddenly that familiar sight of the climb up towards the Hotel de Paris takes over and I floor the throttle. I haven’t raced in Monaco for 7 years but the human brain’s ability to retain information and delve deep into those reserves when it needs to is amazing. Immediately my reference points of drains, barriers, pedestrian crossings and kerbs all come back.
Now, I have never raced around Monaco with a manual gearbox car. The FW08c has a six speed gearbox and this means that you spend an awful lot of the lap with only one hand on the gear. These days we take for granted just how little attention we need to pay to gear ratios to make it easy for the drivers. I think back to my days in Formula 3 when you would often tweak ratios so you didn’t have to change gear mid-corner and give yourself a bit more comfort.
The demonstration organised for us was very unique as we only had 9 cars on track, which meant that unlike every other session I’ve ever done here in Monaco, we actually had space to play around! As the tyre temperatures build up and I start to lean on it, I realise just how much time is spent thinking about choosing the right gear. Suddenly, powering from Tabac and attacking the entry of the Swimming Pool complex isn’t as easy as you need to take a hand off the wheel to hook 4th gear!
As I come out of Casino Square and accelerate down to Mirabeau, I have this distinct memory of seeing Keke powersliding on slicks in the damp, the back of the car dancing around as he plays with the throttle. The part you don’t see on the video is how while doing that he needed to be brave enough to take one hand off the wheel and change gear while the car tracks the various camber changes and bumps on the road going downhill. Oh and do that in the damp, on slicks for 76 laps!
The Cosworth DFV engine is one of the sport’s great icons. Back in 1983, F1 was firmly into the Turbo era and the Williams with its normally aspirated engine had no chance on a big power circuit like Silverstone or Paul Ricard (the team switched to Honda turbo power before the end of the season). However on a twisty track like Monaco, especially in the damp, the linear torque curve made the engine very user friendly while the drivers trying to manage the mighty turbos, struggled to put the power down as they went in and out of the lag zone. Rosberg started fifth on the grid that day and led the race by the end of the first lap – in the 35 years since, nobody has done that from outside the top two rows of the grid!
The engine feels beautifully predictable to drive and with a car weighing just over 500 kilos, the 600 horsepower gives it plenty of grunt, especially when you consider the lack of downforce and drag in comparison to a modern car. When you come out of Portier and hammer the throttle for the blast through the tunnel,
the traction offered by the huge rear tyres is immense and you really do punch out of the corners.
Thankfully for someone like me who has raced with a paddle shift car for the past 12 years, the six speed gearbox is very user friendly and reminds you of what a design genius Sir Patrick Head was. Bearing in mind this was designed 35 years ago with a fraction of the design tools and machining equipment available today, plus no simulation software, every gearshift feels like a positive ‘click’ into position and in fact even going down to first gear for corners like Rascasse isn’t a problem.
If I think about what the car is like in terms of the chassis, I’d say it was almost designed to excel at circuits like Monaco. The short wheel base makes it very nimble and agile. Monaco is a circuit where you need a good front end and have the confidence to get the front of the car turned in quickly while having the confidence that the rear stays gripped up.
The big rear tyres offer that rear end grip but the small front tyres actually make the steering quite light in the fast corners, which isn’t particularly confidence inspiring through the tunnel or the quick Swimming pool chicane. I’m sure with more laps, it’s something that I would get used to but this light front end is also a reminder of just how much aerodynamic load goes through the front end of a modern car relative to something from 35 years ago. The drivers back then didn’t have the training regimes that we have today and the tracks were much bumpier than the modern circuits so I’m sure they were thankful that the steering wasn’t any heavier!
1983 was the first season after the ground effects era in Formula 1 where the cars were setup to be ultra stiff and they rattled the drivers bones to the core. The lap times in 1983 were 4 or 5 seconds per lap slower than the year before because the skirts were now gone but it made driving the cars a much more pleasant experience.
Over the crests, bumps and kerbs, the car is actually very compliant to drive, which again underlines why it was a user friendly car for a track like Monaco. The track today is a lot smoother than it used to be – in fact I remember coming here in GP2 in 2008 and running pretty much the same springs, roll bars, packers and ride height as Magny-Cour a couple of weeks later! In a way this is a bit of a shame as I think bumpy street tracks like Sebring or Macau have so much more character and the bumps are a part of the challenge for the drivers.
Driving the FW08C at Monaco has made me respect Keke Rosberg and his peers more than I ever did. The cars of that era needed the driver to be completely on top of it. You really have to grab it by the scruff of it’s neck and hustle it to get it to respond in the way you want it to. They had no electronics or for that matter, the level of refined downforce to help them. I would say that nowadays the ratio of car versus driver to get a laptime is probably 80 per cent car and 20 per cent driver. Back then it was probably more 50–50 because every single input the driver made affected the way the car responded. A different time, with some very special drivers and very special cars. ⌧