Who better to provide an armchair ride around the Gold Coast street circuit than John Martin. In the Australian Formula 3/Nikon Indy 300 Challenge in 2008, the lad from Blackwater was fastest in every practice, qualifying and race session.

With pole position by a massive 1.58 seconds, five fastest laps, two race wins and an overall event win there is no one better qualified to take you on a guided tour.

“Not having driven an A1GP car around Surfers Paradise I can only go off our data from other tracks and my knowledge of the place from racing Formula 3 there last year,” says Martin.

“The pit straight is obviously not straight, so as you cross the start – finish line you are in about the middle of the road and blending over to the left near the end of the pit wall. The pit straight is the fastest straight and should see us hit 270-280km/h.”

“Then you try and turn the car so its straight and that sets you up with the line of the kerb at the first chicane and the way the wall turns around to the right.”

“So you turn the car to the right and that keeps it a straight approach in the braking zone. Down into the first chicane we will be in sixth gear and brake at about the 80 metre mark and shift back to third gear.”

“There are some quite big bumps in the braking zone, right where we first hit the brakes. One big bump in particular that as the weekend goes on it gets better and better as the track rubbers in. As you get more grip during the weekend you can brake quite deep in there and over the hump.”

“t is vital to have the car setup to handle hitting the kerbs because there are so many quick chicanes. Here you just touch the first kerb on the left and put your wheels up on the highest part of the one on the right; just run along the top of it.”

“The first chicane is quite quick and on the exit you can let the car run out fairly wide so that you almost brush the wall. You have to be careful though because there is a tyre stack on the outside wall that sticks outs and you can’t skim that too much because the conveyor belt material around it pulls you in if it rubs against a tyre.”

“Out of the first chicane we should be in fourth gear approaching the second chicane along the right-hand wall. It is actually tighter than it looks initially. On entry it looks fast, but on the exit it tightens right up and the camber of the road drops away massively. So you get lulled into a false sense of security there really. You fire it in and get across the top of the kerb and it’s alright then all of a sudden there is a wall in front of you. That is where a lot of the shunts happen.”

“You just about clip the left wall on the entry and you use half a car of kerb in the middle of the corner to get the car to turn sharply and drive out hard onto the next straight which is quite important because it’s quite long. Also the braking zone at the next corner, ANA Hotel is a good place to have a go at somebody if you get a good run out of the second chicane.”

“Approaching ANA I am back up to sixth gear and out near the outside wall again. But then you come back across to mid-track because the road again bends around to the right. The braking zone is a bit blind until you get around the kink in the straight and then you can see the 150 metre board and the 100 metre board. I’ll brake about the 100 metre board because it’s quite tight.”

“The braking area down there is quite smooth and it rubbers up quite well so there is a fair bit of grip down there later on in the weekend. I turn in quite early for ANA, the whole inside of the corner is concrete pavement and the kerb just blends up to that so you can use quite a bit of that. You take as much as you can really without the car bottoming out.”

“On the exit the camber of the road does drop away a little bit, but it’s not too bad. I think on a good lap I’ll be through there in about third gear.”

“Then you get hard on it and stay in third for a short straight, there is a big bump in the middle so you come out as close as you can to the wall on the right. Sometimes you might just brush it with the right rear tyre. You come out to mid track and then back in again just to miss the big bump. If you stay on the outside line there the bump will lift the back end of the car right off the ground.”

“The corner leading along the beachfront is really tight and we will take that in second gear. The exit is massively off camber, when you walk it you think woah. It is another place where people tend to slide into the wall because they carry just a fraction too much speed in there and where the camber runs away they drift into the wall.”

“It tightens right up on the exit and you really have to get it right because it leads onto the back straight. I try to take a late apex to get as much power down on the way out.”

“Along the back straight I don’t have time to look at the view of the ocean because we will be doing at least 260km/h, it depends how much wing we run.”

“You brake very deep for the lefthander that is the start of the chicane, again you are turning quite early but you carry the brakes a long way into the corner. It tightens up on the entry so you can carry a lot of speed into the first part, while still maintaining that you stay as much as you can to the left. That is where Will Power made a bit of a mistake last year.”

“The trick is to stay as close as you can to that wall because the camber of the road is greater and it holds you into the corner, also you want to stay as close as you can to the left so you can turn back quite late for the right that runs onto the next straight that leads to the quad chicane.”

“The kerb there is quite flat so you take like a whole car of kerb there, or as much as you can get away with really. You carry a lot of speed through there in third gear.”

“The braking is quite tricky there because you are carrying a lot of speed on the entry and then you are trying to slow the car and turn it at the same time. It wants to slide a lot there so it’s quite easy to make a big mistake.”

“The next bit again is not really straight; the track goes right, then it goes left. It is actually quite a big bend but when you straighten it out it is not so bad.”

“You come out of the chicane right against the outside wall and then you run against the wall for a little while and then you blend across where the track starts to go right and then you just aim the car for the inside of the left. That sort of puts you in about the right position for the quad chicane.”

“The ideal line is a bit to the right of mid track. You don’t really touch the first kerb, a little on the left; you don’t really want to touch that. You just run along the edge, the white line of that and just touch the one on the right.”

“The next left is the one you take a lot of kerb on. You just sort of aim for it right from the start of the quad chicane as though the first two kerbs aren’t really there. You brake just before the first left hand kerb and its down two gears to fourth.”

“When you do the track walk there you think, “There is no way I am going to be able to get through here in fourth gear, there is no way it’s that quick.” Then once you get through there it’s surprisingly quick. It is the most enjoyable part of the circuit.”

“You take half a car of kerb on the second left hand kerb and then you take half a car of kerb over the right and just aim straight to the left. You are still slowing the car down as you approach the second part of the chicane and then get back on the gas as you go over the right and nail the throttle to the floor as you go over the last left hand kerb on the exit.”

“That brings you out right up against the wall. A lot of people go off there because if you take too much kerb there you get a lot of oversteer on the last part and end up in the wall.”

“As you come out of the quad chicane you are as far up against the right hand wall as possible because the track kinks to the right. It is quite a short straight so I imagine we will only get back up to fifth gear.”

“The braking zone kinks further to the right so it’s quite good. It means you are dead straight for the braking zone and it’s another good place to pass. If you get a good run down into Conrad’s, as they blend right if you stay wide for a fraction and get down the inside of them there is not a lot they can do there. It should be third gear through there.”

“You can carry a lot of speed from the entry all the way to the apex because the corner is quite banked. Just as you start to exit from the apex out to the wall the corner goes up over a big rise. You can nearly launch the car off the rise because it is quite sharp and quite steep. If you get on it the car will nearly bottom out on the crown of the road.”

“Towards the exit of the corner the camber of the road drops away massively and you end up rubbing the wall there a lot. That is why you will see cars getting really out of shape there. Over the hump the floor of the car bottoms out. You get on the gas and then balance it on the throttle waiting for the hump and then get on it again.”

“Another really short straight that curves to the right before the left hander, which will probably be a case of staying in third gear. You turn in to the left and it’s a bit hard to see the kerb and the wall on the inside. It’s another turn where you can carry quite a bit of speed and if someone is a bit slow you can run through the left a lot faster and set the car up to pass them through the right that follows because you are up the inside.”

“On a normal lap you would want to be out to about mid track, if you carry more speed than that you hurt the right hander which leads onto a bigger straight. So you slow the left down a little bit and then turn across to try and get the right a bit better. It is a short stab on the throttle in the middle in third gear to just get the car to change direction. I wasn’t using any brake there in Formula 3.”

“There is a tyre stack on the inside of the exit there and you can’t really see the exit because the tyres are quite high and so is the wall. You just turn into the unknown really in the right hander. On the exit the camber again drops away.”

“The short straight approaching the final corner sees us in fourth gear on the rev limiter up against the left hand wall. You want to be as straight as you can in the braking zone so you get the maximum braking force you can.”

“You start to turn in just before you can see the braking zone, there are a few little bumps on the entry but it is not too bad. You will see some cars lock up the right front brake there because you are turning right before you turn left.”

“We will either be in second or third gear through there. In qualifying in Formula 3 I was using third gear. It is quite a rewarding corner when you get it right. There are these little concrete buttons built into the inside kerb but you can get your wheels inside them and run half a car of kerb across the first kerb. You just have to be careful you don’t bottom the car out on them.”

“Part way through the corner you come back from half way past mid track so it’s probably on a quarter past, or a car width out from the second part of the kerb. From there on in you are just picking up the throttle as gently as you can to avoid getting oversteer.”

“You can’t get on it hard straight away because the corner tightens up a little bit towards the end. From there you go out against the right hand side wall and run down the straight again.”

John Martin

[source: A1Team Australia]
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