A lap of Shanghai

Sky Sports F1's Anthony Davidson provides a corner-by-corner guide to Shanghai, this weekend's venue of the Chinese GP...

Turn Nine itself is a nice corner. It's pretty much ninety degrees, but a driver must stay off the kerbs through the exit because the car will still be turning and traction is needed to carry you around Turn Ten. In an ideal world, Ten would be taken full throttle, but more often than not - because of a tailwind, or a heavy fuel load, or fading rear tyres - a driver might have to slightly lift off to rebalance the car. It's a really satisfying corner to get right if you can take it full throttle, but it's also definitely one that you have to build up to over a weekend. On the exit of Turn Ten, there's a tricky little kerb that is quite rough and can bounce the car if you take too much of it and even put a car into a spin if you run too wide there. There's a small straight before Turn Eleven as we lead into a section of the track that reminds me of the Club Section at Silverstone, with a tight approach into Eleven, down into second gear and a 50mph apex for one of the tightest corners on the track. Then immediately, under half acceleration, the car must be turned to the right of the track around Turn Twelve - a corner which is the complete opposite of Turn One in that it starts off slow, then you gradually build up speed, bringing downforce and stabilising the car. It's an extremely important corner to try to carry momentum around because it leads onto such a long straight - the longest straight on the calendar until Korea's addition. In a racing situation, exiting Twelve and then Thirteen well is absolutely crucial because Turn Fourteen, at the end of the straight, is a great overtaking opportunity with or without DRS. If you're the car in front, a clean exit is vital, but, equally so, if you're the car behind, you want to stay as close as possible through Twelve and Thirteen to be in the slipstream down that back-straight - which is so long, and makes DRS such a powerful tool, that in 2011 we saw lapped cars unlap themselves into Turn Fourteen! In Formula 1, it's very rare that any straight feels long, but the back-straight which leads into Turn Fourteen at Shanghai is something special. In the car, you really do feel like you have a bit of time to think about balance or any modes you want to change on the steering wheel, absorb information over the radio from your engineer, and, in a racing situation, carefully plan your move at the end of the straight. On the approach into Fourteen, a driver will look to the left where there are brake-marker boards and then usually look to brake just before the 100-metre board for what is a very slow corner. However, that braking point will change a great deal over the course of a weekend because there are so many variables at play - such as wind direction, the availability of DRS, and fuel loads. The difference can be as much as 50 metres and so learning those points through a weekend, when you have different fuel loads and sometimes DRS, is an important part of a driver's preparation to be stored in their memory bank for Sunday. Going into Fourteen, it's very easy to lock-up plunging down into a 50mph, first-gear apex. There's not much a driver can do in a racing situation and there's a car behind - it will either dive down the inside at the last minute or just drive straight past you along the straight if their DRS is active and powerful enough. You can feel a bit like a sitting duck if you are being chased and even if you do successfully hold your position by taking the inside into Fourteen then, more often than not, you will see the pursuer simply cross your line and drive past you on the exit. There's then a short run up the hill to Sixteen, which is a really tricky turn. There aren't many ninety-degree corners in F1 and when you approach it from a relatively high speed and in sixth gear, like you do for Turn Sixteen at Shanghai, it's very tricky to clip the apex just right. There's only one correct point of contact around this corner - you don't want to ride the kerb too much because it's quite aggressive, and you don't want to miss it because, if you do, you'll lose a heap of momentum onto the long start-finish straight. It's a corner which can easily make or break a lap - and a corner that's also vitally important at the start of a lap in qualifying because it leads on to the start-finish straight. In normal circumstances, this is a straight which would be considered substantial in terms of its length, but it's dwarfed here by the back-straight leading into Fourteen. And that's a lap of Shanghai - demanding, tricky, but, all in all, a really interesting challenge for a driver to tackle. AD