2010 Volkswagen Polo Cup: Round 6 Driver Experience

Race 2. The heat was getting unbearable. I could feel the insides of my helmet soak up with sweat as salty droplets started flowing down my forehead and over the nose as they then trickled down my cheeks. My t-shirt was all wet under the dark blue racing overalls and the constant grind from the diesel powerplant that was filling up the cabin was starting to get to me. I had been on the tail of the number 12 car for 5 laps, slowly closing the gap as I kept going faster and faster around the MMSC circuit in Chennai. 2:10.883, 2:09.975, 2:09.327, 2:08.776 – my times kept plummeting with each passing lap. The faster I went, the more difficult it became to keep concentrating on my lines, especially with the silver VW Polo Cup car getting nearer and nearer till the inevitable happened. Going into the final sequence of corners I realised I was too fast to make the tight left-hander that was C10 in a never-ending series of turns – the slowest and one of the most difficult corners on the circuit. I braked hard and stayed off the gas as I tried making the turn – big mistake. The tail broke out to the right and then snapped back left as I tried to correct it, before snapping back right again. That was when I floored the right foot with my hands frantically fighting the steering, and I was back in control – pointing exactly where I needed to be going, on track and in line for C11’s tight right onto the bridge. Valuable time had been lost and Number 12 was already a corner ahead of me. I had to start back all over again.

My first race weekend as the guest driver for the 6th and final round of the inaugural Volkswagen Polo Cup Championship hadn’t started out with so much excitement. I had never driven the ‘Cup Car’ before and this was really the closest I had ever been to a proper on-track touring car. To make matters worse it had rained all night before Friday practice was to begin – this was going to be one steep learning curve! The guys at Volkswagen Motorsport had been kind enough to provide me with racing overalls, but for the lack of time I didn’t get the chance for a taxi ride on the circuit before Practice 1 to get to know the lines, speeds and gears to drive in. Driving on highways and city streets is a completely different affair no matter how fast you can manage to go out there – the track is a different monster altogether. The mechanics helped out with setting up the red Number 2 car that was to be my ride for the remainder of the weekend. The single OMP racing seat was adjusted and I was shown around the controls of the car including a strict instruction not to touch the fire extinguisher switch unless I was sure it was an emergency that would involve a catastrophic flame of huge proportions. With the tyre pressures all set to standard values and the suspension set to soft (on my insistence – from road knowledge of course), I headed out to the drivers’ briefing. Rayomand Banajee was at the table discussing the course of the days events to come – and yes, the first time I was to ever drive the Cup Car on the Chennai circuit was going to be on a wet track – I was petrified!

The lesser I mention my time out in the first practice session, the better. In a nutshell it involved two spins that saw me take small off-track excursions – one at C1 and the second at C8, wrong lines and even worse gear choices, loads and loads of the regular and seasoned Polo Cup drivers passing me over and over again and a pathetic lap time of 2:27.348 – all of 17 seconds off the pace of the fastest car. With that catastrophe behind me, I geared up for Practice 2 in the late afternoon. The track had dried off by now and we were to go out on slicks – a set of 6 tyres allocated to each driver for the weekend. I got my suspension stiffened up a notch to the ‘medium’ setting and was ready to go out again for another 20 minutes – having to start from scratch as far as my learning curve was concerned. Having managed to keep my car on track for the entire session and dropped my laptimes down by 12 seconds on my previous session, I knew the big chink in my armour was C1 – the fast, long right hander just after the start-finish straight – a corner that the regular drivers take at around 140 km/h. I was managing only 110 km/h, with my lines and gear selection still way off from what it needed to be. Practice 3 and Qualifying were scheduled for Saturday and I knew I needed help. The heavens decided to stay dry for the night and I was only thankful that I could carry on with slicks instead of the wet-weather tyres for third practice. Another 5 seconds shaved off from my laptime as I stiffened up the suspension further to the ‘hard’ setting and started going faster around C1 – this time at around 120 km/h. It wasn’t enough – I needed help if I had to avoid getting lapped during the race – a humble target for a complete race rookie considering the pedigree of the top drivers at the Championship. Enter Aditya Patel.

With under an hour to go for the qualifying session, the whizkid who now races on foreign shores showed me how and where to drive on the Chennai circuit to garner some respect out of my laptimes. If there’s ever a time not to experiment with your car’s setup if you’re already happy with it, it’s just before qualifying – but that’s exactly what I did – another big mistake. I got the tyre pressures up a notch all round only to find that I was sliding around every corner for lack of grip. If it weren’t for two of the drivers who spun off before posting a competitive qualifying time, I’d have started at the back of the grid for Race 1 the next day. Lesson learnt, I switched back to my setup that I had in Practice 3 and lined up on the starting grid on Sunday. The first race was pretty uneventful and yes, I finished last – not counting any of the DNFs for the race, obviously. I was matching my times from Practice 3, but I needed to get faster if I was to walk away from this race weekend with any kind of self-respect. There was no way I was going to be able to match the pace that the regular drivers carry, but I wanted to inch as close to it as possible. And that was exactly what I had set out to do in Race 2, until my moment at C10 happened.

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I had 6 more laps to go and I knew I had the pace to reel in Number 12 and take the fight to him. I put my head down and started back in pursuit as the distance between my car and his kept getting shorter and shorter. 3 laps to go, I was just about a car length behind him getting into C1. I had by now realized that I was faster than him through C1 and all I needed to do was to keep the pressure on. A quick glance at my speedometer and I could see the needle kissing 140 km/h as I kept the throttle pinned through C1 – this was it! Getting into C2 I was right on his tail as I slid ever so slightly to line the car into the turn and got on the throttle again. As we entered C3 I saw Number 12 run wide and off the track as his car fishtailed uncontrollably – this was my window. I stepped on the gas to make a pass on the inside just as his car started veering straight into my path. A quick jerk of the steering wheel saw me ride the curbs on the fast kink as I heard and more importantly, felt three loud thuds on the underbody, but I kept it pinned till I was ahead.

The car kept running normal, so I continued to press on. By the end of the start-finish straight on the final lap, I had pulled out almost three-quarters the distance of the straight ahead and glanced at the laptime on the onboard console. 2:07.293! I was about 4 seconds off the pace of the fastest guys and only about a second off on the slowest of the regular drivers. Most may not think that to be a huge achievement, but inside my helmet, I was delighted. My first race weekend, and I had shed 20 seconds off my laptime from when I had first gotten into the car on Friday. All the sweat, grime and heat had been worth it. If there will ever be a ‘next time’ for me in the Polo Cup Car at Chennai, I know I’ll be able to shave off a lot more time. Anybody at Volkswagen Motorsport listening?