Adaptability
The time that multiple Indy 500 winner Helio Castroneves drove a Supercar, and what makes the best of the best .........the best
ADAPTABILITY
Written by Wes McDougall
“When you brake.......it's.....it's kinda not stopping!”
Helio Castroneves uttered this short description, having just stepped out of the #47 SBR Ford Falcon FG Supercar at Queensland Raceway. It was the 20th October 2010, and the 3-time Indy 500 winner (at the time he had won three, he would later go on to win his fourth crown in 2021) would express this feedback to me smiling, as his hair remained in near perfect condition, despite just moments ago haven worn a helmet and balaclava! This week in The Racing Line , I recount the time that I was lucky enough to engineer Helio Castroneves, what I learnt from him, and why I believe adaptability is such a powerful, useful and important trait for any racecar driver to have.
With Supercar drivers' Brodie Kostecki and Shane van Gisbergen joining other international 'Road Course Ringers' - Jenson Button, Kamui Kobayashi and Mike Rockenfeller over the weekend at Indianapolis Road Course in the NASCAR Cup Series, it reminded me of the time that international stars descended on Australia's shores for the all-too brief Gold Coast 600's, where Helio was one of a plethora of overseas drivers to step foot in the Supercars Championship around the streets of Surfers' Paradise.
Looking back, it is almost quite unbelievable to fathom the talent that was on display, especially from 2010-2012. What was originally conceived as a quick replacement for the ill-fated no-show of the A1GP cars, the Supercars event attracted Indycar winners and champions, Indy 500 champions, Formula 1 drivers, winners and champions, WTCC champions, Le Mans and Endurance Racing champions and more. It was truly a 'who's who' of international motorsport, racing on one of the worlds most attractive road courses. Whilst the driving talent in Australia and New Zealand is no-doubt world class, I believe that these events were a great way to create a yard stick for the local drivers to learn, as well as bolstering the professionalism of the local teams.
Initially however, it was the 'internationals' that were the ones learning. A wet test day at Queensland Raceway was certainly eye-opening for them, and the streets of Surfers' Paradise followed. Key to the list of numerous new-found tribulations was, for many, driving on the other side of the car. Especially having to figuratively and literally scrape the wing mirrors on the walls on the Gold Coast Track. Many Indycar drivers were also adapting (and in Helios case - relearning) how to right foot brake, after many years of using their left. But soon, the laptimes began to tumble and the numbers posted were extremely quick.
Unfortunately Helio clipped the wall at the end of the back straight in Friday practice, and caused considerable damage to the #47 Falcon. And whilst no driver (or crew) wants to crash, this wasn't simply a 'mistake' on Helio's behalf. No, he was exploring the limit of the car, and specifically the limit of the tyres.
Let's pause for a moment, and consider what we mean by "The Limit". Lesson 8.2 of The Complete Race Driver is titled "What Does It Mean to Drive The Car At The Limit?" and talks about this very topic. At Surfers' Paradise that year, the fast laptime was around 1 minute 13 seconds (73 seconds). So if we suppose that 73 seconds is "The Limit" and expressed as 100% - the absolute best a car and driver combo can achieve......how do we measure, understand and achieve this limit? Let us also suppose that say double this fast lap time (146 seconds) is 50% of the limit. In other words "nowhere near the limit". What would this look like on a graph, especially the closer and closer you get to 100%?
Figure 1 - "The Limit"
The graph above shows the progression of what a reduction of laptime looks like in terms of percentage of "The Limit". If we drove around the track at "half pace" it would take 146 seconds to transverse the circuit. And it would be fairly easy to pickup the pace and lop 30 seconds off the laptime - but we would still only be at some 63% of the limit. OK, lets start getting serious and lay down a 85 second lap and pick up the pace, another 30 second gain. But we only hovering around 86% of "The Limit". How about a laptime that is some 5 seconds off the ultimate pace? Still some 6% away from being close to being classified fast. Infact, you have to be within half a second of the 1 minute 13 second lap to even be classified within 1% of "The Limit".
OK, this is nothing revolutionary or groundbreaking, but the hard part of this equation that driver face, is knowing what "The Limit" is, at any given moment in time, at any given corner. This, after all, is essentially the driver's job decription - to drive at or as close to the limit as possible. A lot of the time you may not know how fast you can tackle a corner. You can look at laptime, you can study data and video and see the numbers tell you you need to go 2km/h an hour faster through the corner, but what does that actually feel like, and how do you actually achieve that? Quite often, as a driver your mind will learn just as much from what we would classify as 'mistakes' as you would from achievements. Because your subconscious is continually learning as you drive, when you go into a corner 2km/h too fast and experience the car understeer or oversteer, it retains that information for the next time you approach that same turn. This 'mistake' of entering the corner 2km/h too fast is actually a valuable lesson - you now have a reference point of what say 101% or 102% of the limit looks and feels like, and can compare that to a previous lap when you were travelling through the turn 5km/h too slow, to figure out where the optimal speed lies.
This, of course, is what happened to Helio when he was striving to find the limit in practice. Unfortunately, his lesson came to an end thanks to a irremovable object in the shape of a concrete wall.
But this discretion aside, Helio would go on from strength to strength across the weekend. Instead of being somber and down-trodden, he poured over the data with me to understand what had happened, to gain an appreciation of just how far over "the Limit" he had gone, to know how to use the tyre effectively. From this he built on his knowledge and was the master of a studious student - continuing to ask questions, comparing his data against Tim Slade and of course watching all the onboard video he could get his hands on to get a visual representation.
So here was a driver, that could have very easily taken the opportunity to treat this outing like a bit of fun or an extended holiday, but all I witnessed was an eagerness to learn, improve and adapt. Sure, in the 'down time' between sessions his personality shone through and he'd be telling jokes and laughing, but the moment the helmet was on, or we were in a debrief, he was the consummate professional. He was even coming up with suggestions for strategy!
In the races, he put his knowledge to good use, setting some blistering laptimes , and was amongst the crème de la crème of the international drivers.
In 2011 when Castroneves returned, we had a more competitive car, but any chance of a good result was hindered by a broken rear anti-roll bar. I remember Helio's laptimes trailing off initially in his stint, but then gradually the laptimes were reducing once again, as if somehow fighting miraculously against the tyre degradation. What he was doing, was adapting. Adapting and learning on how to drive a car that had a broken rear anti-roll bar. Initially the car was incredibly understeery, but then, slowly but surely he would change his driving to counter-act this. His mid corner speeds were slow, but his exits were superb, getting to full throttle on 30 lap old tyres quicker than a new tyre in qualifying! And through the last sector he would choose a lower gear in each of the corners to try and recoup some of the lost rotation. Pretty soon he was back on the pace, and even passing other cars!
I often think of this example when I talk with drivers about adaptability. Of course, it is always the goal to perfect and fine-tune the cars setup to be at "The Limit", but despite best made plans, sometimes this just doesn't happen.
Helio has been a mainstay of the Indycar series and managed to win an incredible FOUR Indy 500's. He has managed to adapt his driving style and been at the forefront of different periods and eras of both Champcar and Indycar, winning in different chassis and on street tracks, permanent courses and ovals. He also has won the Rolex Daytona 24 hour event in a sportscar. But for me I will always remember the way that he quickly adapted to driving a completely foreign racecar on the streets of the Gold Coast.
