"A short burst of power takes you up to fifth gear, but you’re straight back on the brakes again and into second gear to accommodate the left hand corner which follows. While the next turn might look like a long right-hander, it doesn’t seem like that much of a challenge from inside the cockpit. You can easily take it flat, accelerating up to fifth gear before braking down to third gear for the second-final left-hand corner. There’s a lot of lateral G here, too and, again, you have to keep the rear end in check as you go hard on the brakes for the final corner – a tight first-gear right-hander.
"From the time you exit Signes, all the way through to the start-finish straight, you are constantly changing direction. You pull lateral G of incredible force, whilst also trying to compensate between oversteer and understeer, and also keep the rear end straight. It’s a huge challenge, but a very exciting one.
"Coming out of the final corner, you can floor the throttle once again as you emerge onto the start-finish straight. But you have to be careful - the GP2 car has no power-steering or traction control, so the rear end can prove to be very lively.
"The last occasion that I drove this specific layout at Circuit Paul Ricard was back in 2003. I’ve been speaking to my engineers from the time, and they tell me that in the Formula Renault V6 my lap-times were more than ten seconds slower than we are doing at the moment - that’s quite a jump! The downforce, skirts, power… everything about this car is so much better.
"I tested the
Red Bull Racing car a few months back, and I don’t think that there is another category other than GP2 which is so closely matched to
F1. You can now feel the carbon brakes, the car is quick, has good acceleration and is strong. As the final step to
Formula One, the GP2 series is perfect."
![Neel Jani - Racing Engineering [pic credit: GP2 media]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/128944.jpg)
