London, 08th September 2015 - There is no rest for Sean Gelael! Direct from finishing Silverstone on a high, with his second points-scoring finish in the Formula Renault 3.5 Series, the Indonesian heads for the famous Nurburgring circuit in Germany for the next round this coming weekend.
The Nurburgring, which was built as an incredible 22-kilometre circuit in the 1920s, was revamped considerably in time for the 1984 Formula 1 season. This new, modern circuit consists primarily of long, constant-radius corners, which place a premium not only on driver precision but on car handling.
Gelael therefore will be bidding for points on a circuit that is very difficult to get right, and will be under pressure to give good feedback to his Jagonya Ayam with Carlin race engineer Marcus Koch in the early free practice sessions to maximise performance in qualifying and the races.
Koch, an Australian, was a promising up-and-coming driver in the 1980s and moved to the UK to further his career. But, like so many, his driving ambitions faltered due to lack of funds, and he soon moved into engineering, a job he has been doing now for 25 years, including running Russian Mikhail Aleshin to the 2010 Formula Renault 3.5 title with the Carlin team.
The Formula Renault 3.5 cars such as the one Sean drives are all identical Dallara-built chassis, but Koch explains that this does not lessen the challenge. “It is pretty much like any formula, where you are given a package and you just have to work with the set-up. There is an infinite amount you can do with cambers, casters, springs and dampers. The car has an incredibly good aerodynamic package – it has very high downforce and a lot of the challenge is making it work as efficiently as possible.”
Of course, maximising downforce with wing settings can create drag and make you slow on the straights. “Making the car work in the slow corners and having aero efficiency on the straights is normally contradictory,” Koch continues, “so you cannot just bolt on the downforce. How the suspension works and ride-heights are incredibly important.”
Qualifying and the race are different disciplines for engineering. “You need your Michelin tyres to come in quickly in qualifying so you can put the lap in,” says Koch. “Also the drag-reduction system [DRS, where the press of a button changes the rear-wing setting to increase speed] is fully operational in qualifying so the cars are set up for that. You are only allowed eight pushes of the DRS per race, so we have to set the car up for full aero, and we also have to look after the tyres.”
And how does Koch believe Sean is progressing in his first season of Formula Renault 3.5? “He is a very competitive person and that makes him critical of himself, so he always wants to do better,” he says. “Every driver is impatient for results but Sean is doing really well, and now he is regularly hitting the top 10, which is where he needs to be. Also, he is good at telling us what the car is doing, which makes my job easier!”
And that will be critical at the Nurburgring this weekend, where Gelael will bid to break into the points for the third time in his Formula Renault 3.5 career, at just the seventh attempt. (ms/arl)
