David G Fisher
> >Lauda has never driven a car with the amount of downforce of a modern
> >F1 car.
> That's complete BS and another myth.
> The early-mid eighties flatbottomed and ground-effect cars(which Lauda
> also drove) had tons more downforce than today's cars. Today's cars
> comparatively speaking are much less reliant on downforce than in the
> eighties. They were pulling 4g's laterally in 1982 already(w/ground
> effect). In 1984-85 5g's. And that was with much less sticky tyres.
> Lauda actually said in his interview after his Jaguar test drive that
> he thought the grip was comparatively much more progressive than the
> last cars he drove.
> In his own words(2nd quote earlier interview):
> "Q: You have talked about what is easier nowadays, can you tell us if
> anything is harder?
> NL: The difficult part was getting the balance of the car right -
> going into the corner I had understeer, and at the corner I had a
> twitchy car (oversteer). In my time I used slick tyres so the car was
> glued to the floor, and steady round the corner because of the grip,
> but now we have grooved tyres and less aero (help) the car changes
> characteristics quickly until it get to its grippy phase. It is more
> progressive in terms of speed through corners than it used to be. "
> -"To be honest, there was no such thing as cornering technique in the
> ground effect era. "Cornering" was a euphemism for*** practised on
> the driver. . . When you came into a corner you had to hit the
> accelerator as hard as you possibly could, build up speed as quickly
> as possible and, when things became unstuck, bite the bullet and give
> it even more. In a ground effect car, reaching the limit was
> synonymous with spinning out."
> >If he were 27 and had a chance to do significant testing in a modern
> >F1 car I have a hard time believing he'd have a problem. As it
> >stands, you've got an old former racer driving a car he's never driven
> >before with no frame of reference for how far he can push it without
> >going off. He probably also has significantly more fear of going off
> >than most of the new guys do, since in his day going past the limit
> >meant death (was re: his accident at the nurburgring). Now if you go
> >off you slide over some dirt/gravel and into a tire barrier.
> He apparently wasn't that scared when he brought home the '84 WDC.