7 May 2010
Red Bull air racer, Nigel Lamb, is targeting a podium finish at the Rio De Janeiro round of the air race championship, which takes place this weekend. Nigel currently stands in second place behind compatriot Paul Bonhomme in the World Championship standings, after a second place in Abu Dhabi and a fourth in Perth gave Team Breitling its strongest start to the season since 2005.
Nigel commented, “The Rio track is a bit unusual. Whilst parts may look benign, a simple calculation of the expected race time and number of pylons to pass says it’s about 10% busier than Perth, ie an average of 10% less time between passing a gate.
“The holding area is quite tight up against the Sugarloaf, so it’ll be harder than usual to get a good run at the start gate. The chicane is almost dead ahead and we should be able to slide though it without much speed loss. The angle into three will be very important and gate four has some clockwise angle on it so the 190° turn from three and four will be very hard to judge and, on top of that, it’s at very high speed on lap one, so really high g.
“The VTM (vertical turning manoeuvre is very much like Abu Dhabi’s. My guess is that the technique for three-four will be absolutely critical in this race. Lots of time and energy can be wasted here.
“They say there’s some changeable weather coming at the weekend so, with this busy track littered with piloting decisions, I reckon we’re in for a very interesting race.” <a href=”http://www.nigellamb.com”>Click here for more</a>
