I’m flooring the throttle on the mile-long straight and the engine’s roaring. We’re nudging 90mph, accelerating hard and the crash barrier - directly ahead - looks worryingly close.
“Keep your foot down,” orders my instructor. “Now brake, BRAKE ... and TURN..” I’m too slow on the steering and fluff my entry to the chicane. I run wide and bump over the grass before bouncing back onto the track and howling over the finish line.
Click goes the stopwatch. “Well done - if you hadn’t gone over the grass that would have been your fastest lap yet.”
My co-pilot is Rob Wilson who, in his 60s (and enjoying a parallel ‘career’ as a bassist in a rock country blues band) is the ‘secret weapon’ top Formula 1 drivers turn to when they need to shave vital seconds off lap times.
The tools of his trade? Deep experience earned during a racing driver career, a near supernatural feel for car dynamics, a great ‘bedside’ manner, a stopwatch, many packs of cigarettes and a family car: a standard Vauxhall Astra 1.4 Turbo.
“Go again and I want to see a bit more steering,” instructs Rob as I cross the starting line and floor the throttle. “Remember, short corners and a flatter car at the exit.”
It’s the mantra I hear throughout the day as Rob explains how top drivers (his clients include Kimi Räikkönen, Valtteri Bottas, Lance Stroll and Daniil Kvyat among many others) learn to sharpen lap times by learning, and then repeating the same process of car control over, and over.
“There are hundreds of variables in a race; other drivers, weather, incidents - the one thing the driver has 100 per cent control over is their process of controlling the car,” explains Rob. “That’s what we’re here to work on.”
Originally from New Zealand, Rob started racing in 1975 when he won a scholarship to race in the British Formula Ford season. He moved through Formula Three, test drove Formula One, raced Indy Lights, NASCAR and British GT
His calling turned out to be as a coach however and today, a constant flow of famous F1 names fly in from all over the world to seek his help, sitting in the same Astra 1.4 Turbo I’m driving today. Then they fly home to set new personal lap records.
Most sessions - like mine - begin with pen and paper as Rob explains how they are going to shave crucial amounts off their lap times with ‘flat’ and ‘short’ corners.
That means ‘shortening’ their approach to - and exit from - bends in a way devised by Rob, primarily to eliminate time-wasting tyre scrub generated by gentle, longer trajectories. As for ‘flat’, it means ‘listening’ to and feeling the car, giving it fractions of a second to settle between braking and turning, enabling tyres, suspension and other components to perform optimally during turns, delivering extra stability and quicker times.
Rob also works on braking (urging drivers to adjust pressure, almost microscopically, on and off), and instructing them to make early, near imperceptible steering inputs before dialling in larger amounts to ‘settle’ the car. To the uninitiated it might not sound like much but the impressive results speak for themselves.
Rob’s advice is a lot to take in and I’m grateful when - after a cuppa for us both and a fag for Rob - he drives a handful of ‘sighting’ laps. It’s confusing as we take to the circuit marked out with cones, its RAF and USAF history evident from the abandoned airplanes on the infield, disused runways and aprons.
Rob tells me to activate the stopwatch as he passes a cone. Click. Now we’re flying; marker cones hurtle into my line of sight faster than I can focus. The sensation of speed as Rob expertly harnesses every ounce of speed, handling and braking from the Vauxhall Astra is astonishing.
We hurtle around the course at high speed and when I click the stopwatch I see that Rob has lapped it in 1 minute and 28 seconds.
“Your go,” he says. I amble around the circuit trying to remember where the bends are, then Rob clicks the stopwatch. My heartbeat goes through the roof as I accelerate hard, struggle - fruitlessly - to emulate Rob’s deft handling of the car and hear him click the stopwatch as I complete my first lap. 1.55 seconds. Vicars and old ladies probably drive to church faster.
“Right, let’s see what we can do with that,” says Rob. The rest of the morning is spent in a blur of cones, encouraging words of advice, the occasional rebuke for being too timid with steering or throttle - and exhilaration as I shave second after second off my lap times. I’m also reminded to ‘heel and toe’ into bends (operating brake and throttle simultaneously with the right foot).
During Rob’s numerous cigarette breaks we discuss music too; Rob was briefly the bassist with Edison Lighthouse and now plays in a band - Grand Prairie - with a group of friends. “We don’t rehearse - we just turn up and play,” confesses Rob.
By lunchtime my own rehearsals are going well. I’m flying around delivering (almost) consistently smoother, faster laps and gaining valuable insights into what being a racing driver entails. The Astra - with its 150 PS engine - is perfect for the job. As Rob explains, driving a ‘normal’ - but highly capable - car slows things down to a speed where close analysis of steering, braking and weight transfer is possible, over a longer period. The Astra handles crisply, steers beautifully and the engine delivers plenty of power. And of course Rob can sit alongside his pupils.
After lunch I’m slower again, clumsy and maladroit. Patiently, Rob re-corrects my steering, then my braking, and corrects my tendency to floor the throttle too soon, out of bends. He stresses the importance of body fluidity and movement. I drive the Vauxhall Astra hard - no wonder the front tyres are replaced daily, the brake pads several times a week.
Soon I feel on top of my game again. In my last lap I take a deep breath and the Astra sings as we hurtle past old aircraft and a few startled pigeons. Aided by a string of instructions from Rob I cross the line in one minute and 32 seconds - just four seconds slower than Rob’s time in the morning. “Well done,” says Rob. I’m incredulous that - in just a few hours - my lap times have improved so dramatically. It’s easy to see why F1 stars - competing in a world where the difference between success and failure is measured in 1000ths of a second - fly around the world for a few hours of tuition with Rob.
I’m no racing driver and never will be; I drive like a tortoise on the roads. But I’ve now become obsessed by vehicle dynamics; sensing the interplay between throttle, brakes, suspension and tyres as never before. I have renewed respect for the stars of F1, the unsung behind-the-scenes stars like Rob - and the surprising depths of the family Astra I previously took for granted.
