That day I drove an F1 car

Well, the Red Bull team is certainly not going to let me drive their competition cars, no. Still, do a bit of an internet search and you will find former F1 cars for sale, sometimes at very reasonable prices, but don’t be fooled by the maintenance costs though. Even Ferrari put their former F1 cars for sale to their loyal customers. But sometimes you find F1 parts suppliers, who basically supply enough parts that they’re able to put together a complete F1 chassis, add a 650BHp Cosworth engine to it, and off you go.

A collection of nice F1 cars bought bu Ferrari’s most loyal customers

And off we went, my friend (and previous owner of my Ferrari) and I; to AGS who had several F1 cars for rent, such as a former car of Alain Prost. We would get practise sessions in an F3 car before doing a few laps in an F1 car. The practise sessions would allow us to get used to a single-seater and discover braking points.

In the afternoon, following several instructions and how to operate the F1 car, including clutch usage, warming up clutch, etc. (while the car had paddleshifts, it also still had a clutch pedal), we were ready for the F1 drive. Driving back to the track in a van, all drivers were quiet as a mouse. ‘Nervous?’ asked the instructor. Yes we were. And for a good reason; we were about to drive a car with a 1:1 power-to-mass ratio. We had all rented the car for an x amount of laps, but the rule was if you were to end up in the gravel, your laps would be discontinued.

Needless to say, the pressure is on not to stall the car in front of everybody while leaving the pit lane. The clutch was modified to have a longer lever before engaging, but the high sensitivity was still there. After crawling into the driver’s position, one of the mechanics would push the car in order to get a feeling for the clutch pedal. It is tight…very tight; basically about half a centimeter. Move further and you stall it. Geared up, I got the signal to go. The starter was pushed into the rear of the car and the engine burst alive. Into first gear, and slowly….very slowly…move the clutch pedal up. Feeling a bit proud of not stalling it, I entered the track.

Leaving the pits, trying to warm up the clutch

The first thing to notice is the size of the tires. From the driver’s position, they look huge as you can just see over them. While suspension setup and tire choice were far from race configuration (to help us mortals from not crashing…), power and brakes were basically untouched, and the ability to accelerate and in particular decelerate is simply incredible. As the car is so wide, I also felt much more comfortable and confident than in the narrow F3 car.

The gearbox was of the earlier paddleshift generations and refused a gear at some point. Nevertheless, the laps I made in that car were to never forget. Driving back into the pitlane with a massive smile, I told myself that I should do this every year. I didn’t of course, but that’s ok. Those noisy laps in the South of France on that beautiful day gave me a few laps to never forget, and a reminder that the racetrack is the place to be for me.