Navigating the seven corners of Manfeild’s track
The simplicity of the Manfeild circuit is the factor that will make winning the New Zealand Grand Prix tough according to pre-race favourite Thomas Randle.
The Australian was looking forward to getting back on the circuit, but believed its seven camberedturns would make for a challenging weekend.
‘‘It is going to be hard to be fast because it is a simple track,’’ he said. ‘‘That means it will be simple for everyone so I think it will be a really tight race.’’
And the track has the chasing drivers licking their lips.
Second-placed Richard Verschoor ranked it as his favourite track of the series.
‘‘I like it the most,’’ he said. ‘‘There are plenty of overtaking opportunities compared to other tracks and that is what I like.’’
While third-placed Pedro Piquet said Manfeild and Hampton Downs were his top two tracks.
‘‘[Manfeild] is really smooth and I like good tracks with good curves,’’ he said. ‘‘There are a lot of banked corners with a lot of grip.’’
While the track’s layout does not look too difficult to navigate, small mistakes can have big consequences for a driver’s lap times.
And it requires plenty of focus from the start.
Drivers get away to a fast start on the front straight and Randle said on a fine day they would start hard-braking for the first turn at the 90m mark.
Heading into the first bend, Randle said the focus was not running too wide on the entry, then using the kerb on the late apex before they ‘‘smash the throttle on the exit’’.
Verschoor said turn one was one of the best overtaking points of the track.
But Piquet warned it was also where you were in the most trouble of getting tangled with other drivers on the exit.
From there drivers hit the middle section of the track.
Randle said turn two was tricky due to a big bump across the track.
He said corner three was where drivers could gain or lose a lot of time depending on how cleanly they navigated the corner, while during corner four, the car gets loose in the rear.
Piquet said corner five was another good place to look for an overtaking manoeuvre, but said the exit of it and corner six were particularly dangerous.
‘‘There is a barrier and the grass goes down so if you put the wheel there, it is not like you put it there and come back, you put it there and you go off [the track].’’
After the middle straight, Randle said turn six was deceptively fast.
‘‘[There is] a lot of camber so you can carry a lot more speed than you think,’’ he said.
From there it is a flying run down the back straight.
Randle said it was important to be aggressive going into the corner.
‘‘[You] bomb it in hard and try and release the brake as quick as possible,’’ he said.
The exit of the corner is key to ensuring a good run down the front straight.
Verschoor said corner seven was another overtaking opportunity, but it came with some risk.
‘‘It is so high-speed, you can easily lose the car,’’ he said. ‘‘It is a lot of risk, but I like the corner.’’
But it was not a corner that concerned Piquet.
‘‘It looks really intimidating because there is not a lot of space and you come in really fast, but I have never had a problem there so I don’t really think about it.’’
From there, drivers are heavy on the gas as they make their way down the front straight to the startfinish line.
Depending on the direction of the wind, the front straight is one of three parts of the track where TRS drivers can potentially hit speeds of up to 230kmh.