The third race of the inaugural SBMRL season will take us to the Indian Grand Prix at Buddh International Circuit.
As a purpose built track, Buddh represents a stark contrast from the sharp corners of the city based circuit in Singapore. Instead, cars will have the opportunity to push their engines to the limit. Long straights and forgiving corners should make for some of the fastest laps we’ve seen. With high speeds come high risks, and it will be interesting to see how the various drivers manage.
The track starts off with what is the least forgiving corner, a sharp right hander that drivers will have to hit just right. After that, though, comes a moderate straight into a far more forgiving bend before the lengthy stretch that characterizes the first sector. The highest speeds of the track will be found here, and rapid downshifting should be expected for those that aren’t able to get the most out of their engines.
The second sector contains the only two multistop corners on the track, and is highlighted by the long, high speed turn 6. Despite the fact that this will be the most technical portion of the track, drivers who take the best line could sail right through. The track finishes up with three forgiving corners in the third sector before dumping cars back on the starting straight. While it wasn’t uncommon for cars to need to shift all the way down to 2nd gear in Singapore, any car that gets that low in India has clearly missed the mark.
With no starting grid penalties due coming out of Singapore, the starting grid will simply be a reverse of the current driver standings:
- Stanley Washington (YT)
- Danger Wheel (GT)
- The Stig (WT)
- Launch Bornado (RM)
- Mater (GT)
- Ice (CO)
- Captain Slow (WT)
- Nero (CO)
- Jaap Snellrijder (RM)
After an extremely trying race in Singapore, the Green Team will be looking to take advantage of their strong starting position to move up the standings ladder. Conversely, Cobalt’s strong showing in Singapore has them starting towards the back of the pack. Captain Slow’s wire-to-wire run has him starting 7th, but the Stig will start high up the grid thanks to late passes by both Regency Motors drivers in Singapore. Jaap will start at the very back for the second race in a row. That didn’t prove to be a problem in Singapore, but it may be a lot harder on a more forgiving course where mistakes will be fewer. The team will hope that Launch can challenge from the front to keep the team at the top of the leaderboard.
Slip Streaming
We’ll introduce the slip streaming rule for the high speeds of Buddh! Slip streaming allows a car trailing another car to take advantage of the leading car’s aerodynamic footprint in order to pass that car.
In short, slip streaming allows a car to move 3 additional spaces after ending their normal movement in the space immediately behind a car in the same or lower gear, provided both cars are at least in 4th gear.
Slip Streaming Rules:
- Slip streaming is optional
- A car must finish its normal movement in the space immediately behind another car in order to slip stream. You cannot brake in order to take advantage of a slip stream.
- Both cars must be in 4th gear or higher.
- The slip streaming car must be in the same or higher gear than the car it is going to slip stream.
- If a car uses a slip streaming maneuver to enter a corner, that car will consume 1 Brake wear point, without moving back one space.
- All 3 spaces of the slip stream must be consumed unless Brake wear points are used.
