SimHQ.com - Motorsports Zone - Driving rFactor: A Fast Lap at Orchard Lake Grand Prix

Turn 2 (R): Recommended Gear: 2nd. After turn 1, you’ll be brushing the outside (right) kerbing and smoothly cutting the car across the track to the left side of the corner, working up from 2nd through to the rev limiter in 3rd. You’ll see a brief left-hand jink in the road just at the start of the braking zone, but you should plan to pick a racing line that doesn’t require you to turn the wheel to the left at all during braking. At the start of the braking zone, come down hard on the brakes briefly and get the car back into 2nd for the turn in.

Turn 2 is a full hairpin turn, requiring some patience to keep the time you spend in the corner to a minimum. The most common error is to get back on the throttle too soon, well before the optimum apex that comes after about 120-140 degrees of turn. Remember that the optimum apex quite a bit past the half-way (90 degrees) point into this turn, so be patient with the throttle so that you don't lose grip the front tires (understeer) and needlessly delay your acceleration out of the corner.

Turn 2

As you exit Turn 2, keep some power-on oversteer on the car to achieve some chassis slip that will not only help you drift out to the outside kerbing, yet tuck the nose in and let the car track over to the far right side of the track to get set up for the next corner. Once you’ve got the knack for this turn, you should run the car up to the rev limiter in 2nd just as you reach the braking zone for Turn 3.

Turn 3 (L): Recommended Gear: 2nd. The second, but tightest hairpin on the circuit, Turn 3 demands good judgment on apex placement and throttle application to ensure a clean getaway.

Turn 3

Turn 3 is the easier of the two hairpins to negotiate, since it is entered from a lower speed than Turn 2. Expect to just nip the rev limiter in 2nd gear as you reach the braking zone for Turn 3. Stay well to the outside, near the right side kerbing, and look for a sharp turn-in and a lot of wheel input as you turn in. Your turn should be aimed to just nick the apex kerbing past the 90 degree point in the turn. At the apex, the race-authorized traction control will be chattering as you feed in the throttle and roll out the wheel input, looking to just nick the outside kerbing again as you accelerate up the hill towards the most notorious corner at Orchard Lake...

Turn 4 (L): Recommended Gear: 4th. WARNING! Deceptively dangerous corner! This is one wicked and evil turn, and at night will no doubt reap a huge harvest of unwary drivers into its retaining wall. Such a wicked turn deserves a good name, something that makes even the livestock cringe at the calling of its name, like saying “Frau Blucher” near the horses in “Young Frankenstein” (That’s Frankenstien!). So I’ve given Turn 4 a name: I call it “The Kink!”

Orchard Lake's Kink

The short straight between Turn 3 and Turn 4 (The Kink) is slightly uphill and quite unassuming, but what you can't see is that just over that near horizon, the track takes a slight jog to the left. That's one nasty surprise if you're not ready for it. To make matters worse, the apex of T4 sits on the crest of this rise in the infield, and the road drops away just beyond it. This unfavorable geometry makes it very easy for the rear tires to lose contact with the track as you turn into the apex. If this happens it usually results in a spin and hard contact with the outside wall, which is never a good thing. And if that weren't enough, the kerbing on the inside of The Kink is very unforgiving as well. Clipping it with your left side tires will send you around and into the wall, if you've got a tad too much throttle as you touch it. Plan to "breathe" the throttle as you turn in to The Kink, or you'll be saying "HELLO!" to the retaining wall on the outside of the turn.

(Note: The greens keepers at Orchard Lake tell me they have a very hard time keeping the grass green on the outside of The Kink. Some say the corner is cursed. Others note the overlapping layers of tire tracks that seem to roto-till the grass every race weekend and blame it on hooligan drivers...)

So, the moral is to “breathe the throttle and don't touch the kerbing, right? Got it.” Well, yes, but that’s not the end of the story, because if you don't keep your car tight up against the inside of the track, the arched apex will take away just enough tire grip to ensure that you run out of track before you're ready to. So breathe the throttle to keep the tires gripping the track, stay clear of the kerbing, but remember that you can't spare an inch of pavement on inside of this tricky corner. That’s THE KINK!

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