Having watched F1 since the early 1990s a revelation for me was that F1 cars need to keep greater speed through corners in order to sustain or increase their grip on the circuit. I have always known that the cars have mechanical grip (through the tyres) and aerodynamic grip (through the wings pushing the car onto the track) but I had never made the connection with cornering speed. Jenson said that this was the biggest change from karts and other cars with little or no aerodynamics and it must be quite a thing to get your head around when you start to drive these bigger cars.
Other notable highlights were that he has driven with three of the Verstappens:
I’d joined Paul’s team, GKS, in 1995 when I moved into Formula A. It was a great team, where I found myself temporary teammates with Sophie Kumpen, who was dating Jos Verstappen and two years later had a baby with him. In other words, I raced with Max Verstappen’s mum, which is one of those things, like policemen getting younger, that you try not to think about.
…and that he really has been in F1 for a long time:
I was introduced to a dozen or so big names in the sport, including Patrick Head, Frank Williams and even Keke Rosberg, who used to be my dad’s favourite driver back in the day. Keke had his son Nico with him, who’s five years younger than me but was acting even younger that day. He was pulling at his dad’s arm as we were talking, trying to pull him away. I remember looking down at him, silently cursing him for messing up my introduction to Keke, thinking, ‘God, just leave us alone.’
If you’re into F1 this is worth picking up.
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