Two years after taking Erik Comas' Larrousse LH94 for a spin at Magny-Cours in France, I got the opportunity to drive Damon Hill's former Arrows A18 on a private track called Lurcy-Lévis, about three hours south of Paris.
The venue was actually an airfield whose main runway made up part of the track.
Originally, a Yamaha OX11A V10 engine powered the Arrows A18 designed by John Barnard and Frank Dernie. Unfortunately for the new managers of F1 International, this mill was no longer available when they acquired the car. Mechanics therefore fitted a Series-7 Ford HB V8 normally aspirated engine, which was a low-maintenance, easy-to-drive unit that produced in excess of 700 horsepower. I didn't get the chance to first explore the track in a production car, so my time with the Arrows A18 would be quite revealing.
Comfortably seated and firmly strapped, I was ready to go... just as a private jet was about to land. I had to wait a little. Someone fired a shot with the air starter and the V8 immediately came to life. I depressed the clutch and pulled the right paddle shifter, so a “1” appeared on the dashboard. Now that I knew how to start an F1 car, it was time to get underway — without stalling the engine, of course. The first section of the track was quite twisty, and the lack of traction control deterred me from hammering the throttle. Soon enough, however, I approached the long runway and let it rip.
I knew I had to take an on-ramp about halfway down the runway, but I was flying at just over 300 km/h, with the wind rushing in my face and no way to know exactly where that f*** ramp was. The total lack of visual cue didn’t help. I spotted it at the very last second and tried to hit the brakes, but it was too late. Since I didn't want to risk anything, including damage to the car, I continued straight down the line... and realized the runway wasn't wide enough to make a U-turn! I turned the engine off and waited to be “rescued.” What a shame! The crew arrived pretty quickly and re-started the engine, allowing me to complete my nine remaining laps. In the two sections filled with corners, the Arrows A18 felt glued to the tarmac. Yet, I chose to be gentle with the throttle for fear of spinning the car. I simply exploited the massive torque generated by the Ford engine and did some brake-throttle dancing. The track sort of opened up and became faster on the way to the long straight. The engine revved up to 13,000 rpm and let out a raspy wail. Then I noticed a crack in the pavement right in the centre of the runway. I aligned it with the small antenna above the nose of the car to guide me, which turned out to be a really wise move.
At 300+ km/h, there was nearly a full ton of downforce pinning the Arrows to the ground. The steering stiffened and became extremely sensitive to my inputs. Despite these incredible speeds, I felt little if any turbulence around the head; in fact, my helmet didn't move at all. The infamous corner I missed during my first lap had me from going full throttle to slamming the brakes to downshifting a gear to depressing the gas pedal again in what seemed like the blink of an eye. The Arrows A18 must have been going 240 km/h at that time — impressive. I then got back to the twisty section where I dealt with corners in second or third gear. A funny thing happened, though: I made an accidental upshift when my fingers brushed against the paddle shifter! At the end of the straightaway, you needed a certain dose of courage and faith in the machine to pull off the quick right turn. However, the brakes were so powerful that I actually entered the corner at an underwhelming pace. After the tenth and final lap, I returned the Arrows A18 to the paddocks and assessed my performance. Other than a missed turn at the beginning, everything went well. I didn't wreck anything and I felt pretty good. With a power-to-weight ratio of 1hp/kg, driving an F1 car gives you thrills that you can't really put into words. I hope you appreciated my effort.
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