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Sebastian Vettel has won four world drivers championships, 53 wins and 57 pole positions. And he’s done all of it using a pretty unique driving style.
BUT, he’s consistently changed and adapted to the cars he’s driven – through Torro Rosso, Red Bull, Ferrari and now Aston Martin. So let me break down what made him SO fast – and how he’s had to change for each car, because he’s a master of driving incredibly intelligently.
Let’s get into it.
So we have analysed a load of drivers on this channel, but Vettel is most similar to Schumacher in the way he gets a car through a corner.
To understand this, let me show you an example. First is a geometric racing line, it’s the shallowest arc you can take through the corner. Now, this seems like it’d be the fastest way around a track, but it’s not.
When you factor in that cars also need to slow down and speed up through a corner – you end up with a different racing line.
This line is not a perfect arc, but rather what drivers call “more squared”. This mean braking deep into the corner, making the car turn sharper at the apex, and then straightening the car quickly on the exit.
Tyres have a finite amount of grip that can be used for braking, turning and accelerating – or a blend of these things.
With a more ‘squared line’ the idea is that it allows you to brake later, as you’re using more of the tyre for stopping. Then you turn the car and use all of the grip for accelerating.
Now, these are exaggerated examples, but to give some context – Hamilton, Alonso and Charles take a more geometric, curved line. As the line is more swallow, the drivers need less steering angle, so the minimum speed through the corner is higher. However, they are steering for longer, which means they’re slower to get to full throttle.
And if you go back to Vettel’s Red Bull days – he was perhaps the most extreme of the lot. He would push the braking very late – sometimes so far that it looks like he’s missed the apex.
Then he would pivot the car QUICKLY, and slingshot the car out the corner. Getting on the throttle whilst others were still turning hard.
But why does this work?
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Fernando Alonso had a really weird steering technique during the 2005 and 2006 F1 season. He’d shock the Renault F1 car into understeer with a rapid steering input, a technique which had not been seen before in Formula One.
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