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  • Colton Herta: I think it's hard when you have

  • a 20 turn track like this.

  • We're talking about normal road courses

  • that maybe have 10 to 13 corners,

  • and then we come here that has 20.

  • So that's another seven to 10 corners

  • that you're able to have a mistake on.

  • Hi I'm Colton Herta, I'm 20 years old,

  • and I'm a professional race car driver

  • in the IndyCar Series.

  • I'm the winner of the IndyCar Classic

  • at Circuit of the Americas,

  • and I'm here to take you turn by turn.

  • Starting on the start/finish line here,

  • this is where a lot of the overtaking is gonna be done.

  • You have a really good brake zone going up into Turn 1,

  • which is about 140 feet in elevation change.

  • So, you're going up very high

  • so it's gonna make the brake zone a lot deeper.

  • Another key thing coming into Turn 1

  • is there's a very big bump on the entry.

  • So it really disrupts the braking,

  • and to really set yourself up you can maybe move

  • a little to the left of the track there.

  • Going actually into the turn

  • it's gonna be down from sixth gear to first gear.

  • Very standard hairpin,

  • and then try and square it off the best you can

  • and get the power down as soon as possible.

  • Turn 2 is very self-explanatory,

  • it's flat out for us.

  • So this is when you're all the way down on the throttle.

  • That's what we call holding it flat.

  • There's a very big bump that can upset you on cold tires.

  • The car will bottom.

  • When the car slaps the ground,

  • the bottom of the floor,

  • it basically lifts the tires almost for a second.

  • So then the car is out of your control.

  • How you can counteract that is by going a little bit slower

  • so the suspension doesn't fully compress

  • going over that bump.

  • Personally my favorite part of the track

  • is this next section, this Turn 3 through Turn 7.

  • And as you'll see you really wanna keep it tight

  • on the inside and really not extend out too far on the apex

  • or on the exits of the track

  • 'cause you need to be ready for each next turn.

  • It doesn't really slow down that much

  • so you always kinda need to be on your toes.

  • This isn't a place that

  • you'd particularly see a lot of passing,

  • but you really want to stay right up

  • underneath somebody as best as you can

  • because passing zones are coming up very quickly.

  • I think Turns 3 through 7 is the most dangerous

  • just from a sheer speed standpoint,

  • entering in at 200 miles per hour

  • and then actually going through the corners

  • around 160 miles and hour,

  • it can be prone to some big accidents.

  • Okay, so it's very important to get a very good exit

  • out of that section of corners.

  • And this is the most important corner on the whole track.

  • This is gonna lead onto the very long back straight.

  • So, you really wanna focus on not braking too deep,

  • but staying within your limits in the car.

  • This is the most important part here on the exit,

  • getting the power down cleanly

  • so you can make the maximum amount of lap time on that lap.

  • And then also if you're trying to overtake

  • staying right up underneath that guy

  • so going down the back straight you can get a slipstream.

  • Going down the back straight you can see

  • probably going up to about 200 to 210 miles per hour.

  • This is gonna be the number one place to pass.

  • And that's gonna lead you into

  • best braking zone there is on the track.

  • This is a very tough braking zone

  • because you're coming from such a high rate of speed,

  • going all the way down from 210

  • to probably around 70 or 80 miles per hour.

  • Once you get the braking down, it's a very simple corner.

  • Very self-explanatory, it's just like any other hairpin.

  • So Circuit of the Americas

  • is one of the more difficult tracks that we go to.

  • You have very low speed corners and very high speed corners,

  • so you have to be able to set the car up for both.

  • These next few corners are probably the most technical

  • and difficult ones that we go to all year.

  • You really want to get the balance good through here

  • 'cause you can gain a lot of time.

  • This is really, I think, one of the best tracks

  • for the engineers to shine at.

  • He kind of is the brain of the whole team.

  • The mechanics are the guys

  • that are actually making the changes on the car,

  • but the engineer is telling them what to do to the car.

  • He will be doing things such as changing wing angle.

  • When you tilt the wing up,

  • that's gonna give more of what we call down force.

  • And so the air is gonna push the car down harder.

  • So it's a compromise, you want more grip in the corners,

  • you have more wing, but then again

  • you'll be slower down the straights.

  • Another huge thing

  • is spring and damper stiffness and softness.

  • Everybody knows what the spring of a car is,

  • and then the damper is actually the shock inside of it

  • that kinda holds it from compressing too much.

  • When it is stiff, typically that's better for high speed.

  • When it is soft, typically it's better low speed

  • 'cause when it's stiff it doesn't flex the car as much

  • so you're able to stay a lot more stable

  • and go through those high speed corners a lot better.

  • But when it's soft it really kind of digs in,

  • and that's where you want it to be in the slow speed.

  • And so coming into this double left-hander,

  • this is a very tough one.

  • You're braking at angle. So, whenever you brake straight,

  • that's when you're gonna have the most braking performance.

  • When you start turning, that's when the car gets loaded up,

  • and wheels get light, and you'll see

  • what we call locking up,

  • which is when the wheels will actually stop.

  • And you'll skid and that's where you see

  • kinda like smoke coming off the tires.

  • So coming up, the triple right-hander, 16, 17, 18.

  • This is a corner where in qualifying

  • you're all the way down on the throttle.

  • You can do this in qualifying because we'll have new tires

  • and it'll make the car a lot more drivable.

  • When you get into the race and you have older tires,

  • less grip overall, this turns into a much harder corner.

  • Coming through Turn 19,

  • this is another very difficult corner.

  • It's a very fast corner, and then it's very off camber.

  • So that's when the track slants away.

  • So it's a really big corner for the drivers

  • because this is typically

  • where you see a lot of mistakes happen.

  • And you usually see guys that can't

  • control the rear, and the car will just spin out.

  • You finally finish the lap with Turn 20.

  • It's gonna be down from fourth gear to first gear.

  • It's gonna be a very simple hair pin.

  • That's a lap of COTA.

  • Probably one of the, if not the toughest

  • permanent road course we go to

  • just because of the sheer size of it.

  • I think as a driver it's so difficult

  • because you have a bit of everything.

  • Like I said previously, you have the slow speed,

  • you have the high speed,

  • so you really need to be good at all aspects

  • and it's very possible to go off there and have an accident.

  • So, keeping 100% focused the whole time

  • is the most important thing.

  • AJ Caldwell: Hey, I'm AJ, thanks for watching.

  • If you enjoyed that episode of Turn by Turn,

  • don't forget to hit the subscribe button

  • so you don't miss the next installment of Turn by Turn.

  • And let us know what race track you want us to cover next

  • in the comments below.

Colton Herta: I think it's hard when you have

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