paddock, just from being with Forsythe. You know, obviously Robert and I are very close in times at each test. We're both good in different places. I think that's going
to help us regardless of if we have a veteran driver, if we're both rookies. I think we both push each other well. We help each other go to the front as far as our driving. Then the engineers and the team management on Forsythe is, I think, the best in the paddock. It's hard to be intimidated when you're on one of the best teams and you've got
some of the best guys working for you.
Q:
You're both making a transition up to significantly more powerful, more advanced cars. Tell me a little bit about how the transition has gone so far and what the steepest part of the learning curve thus far has been.
JE:
The biggest part about moving into Atlantics is the downforce. The hardest part is that the downforce creates such a pull to the ground that in the braking zone you can hit the pedal harder than I've ever hit it before, and the car will actually respond and stop as opposed to locking up the tyres. In other cars with less downforce, you hit the brake that hard, you'll immediately lock up the tyres. With this, since it grips so well to the ground, you can really stop the car, as well as in high-speed corners, you just have to trust the car. That's one of the harder things to get used to, but I think both Robby and I are doing very well with that.
Q:
Robert?
RW:
John pretty much wrapped it up. I mean, the biggest part is the downforce. Your car is basically acts like a vacuum. For me, it's been a problem for the
BMW, especially with like a flat-bottom car, that it doesn't really matter how you hit the gas or anything like that, as long as you can keep up the speed through the corner, you're fine. With this, the car is much more pitch sensitive. If you hit the gas, you're not getting as much downforce in the front, you get an understeer. There's a lot you can do from inside the car to change the handling. They have the front roll bar you can adjust in the car, which is new to both John and I. It's a big learning curve, but I think, over the four days that we've already done, I know, as a driver, I've improved a lot. I actually did a test in the Atlantic before the Formula BMW World Finals in Valencia. Like John was saying about the brakes, you can put so much pressure on the pedal. I went into Valencia, go into corner two, I hit the brakes, I actually locked up all four tyres. Oh,
can't do that. I found the best thing about the car is, coming from the BMW tyre, it's cool. Hit the gas, seems like you're moving, where the BMW is actually pretty slow.
