Neel Jani drives the first laps of India's F1 track

Neel Jani drives the first laps of India’s F1 track

F1 video

October 25, 2011 at 2:07 pm by Keith Collantine

Neel Jani became the first driver to lap the Buddh International Circuit in an F1 car when Red Bull brought their show car to the track last week.

Here’s footage of Jani in action:

Mercedes published some data based on their simulation of the track:

Initial simulation suggests that the cars will spend around 65% of the lap at full throttle, with the longest full throttle period of 14.5 seconds, between turns three and four.

The cars will exceed 285kph (177mph) at three points around the lap, while the fastest corner is expected to be turn 12, which is expected to be taken at 255kph. The maximum G-loading around the circuit is expected to be 4.0G, at turns five, nine and eleven. [...]

The circuit has similarities to [Istanbul Park in] Turkey, with a long main straight and a very long, sweeping corner (turns ten and eleven) that resembles the triple-apex turn eight in Turkey. However, while turn eight was taken with an average corner speed of 270kph, in India the corners are expected to be taken at 170 kph (turn ten) and 210kph (turn eleven) respectively. The lap time and speed will be very much dependent on the grip level achieved by the Pirelli tyres on the new asphalt surface.

A lap time of 1:25.000 would correspond to an average lap speed of 218kph, while a lap time of 1:30.000 would equate to an average lap speed of 205kph.