Chinese Grand Prix Circuit lap with Paul Aron

      Estonian Paul Aron has been working with the Alpine F1 team since the end of last year as a reserve driver, and on the eve of the Chinese Grand Prix, he drove a lap around the Shanghai circuit on a simulator, talking about its features as he went.

      Paul Aron: "Hello everyone! Today we will do a preview of the Chinese Grand Prix, the second stage of the season and the first, which includes a sprint. Actually, I've never been to the Shanghai circuit, because Formula 3 and Formula 2 races don't take place there, but it's a really interesting track.

      We start the lap, driving along the start and finish line of this track, which is distinguished by a very organic configuration. Approaching the 1st turn, we enter it at a fairly high speed. It has a protracted character, it seems that it is somehow endless, and where it ends, the track becomes very narrow.

      There you need to drive close to the apex, attack the curb, and then overcome the 3rd turn normally. The next corner became famous after Daniel Ricciardo made a spectacular overtake there in 2018, beating Valtteri Bottas along the inside trajectory, after which he won the race.

      In general, this hairpin is a good place to overtake, and there you should try to slow down later, get on the apex, and then accelerate again.…Now we are approaching turn 7. We are going through this left turn at full speed, and there we need to position the car correctly on the highway in order to prepare for the next turn, and it is quite fast.

      Then we have to slow down a lot to overcome two left turns, the 9th and 10th, from which we exit wide, after which we approach the next, 11th turn at full speed.

      It starts with a narrow chicane, where the track goes first to the left, then to the right, and the 13th turn is a very long right, where it is very important to accurately reach the apex, because after it we accelerate in the reverse straight - by the way, this is one of the longest straight stretches in the entire calendar. Of course, at the end of this segment there is one of the best points where overtaking is possible, because then there is a very narrow hairpin.

      There is heavy braking: we try to slow down effectively so that the car changes direction, after which we accelerate again as we approach the last corner. It is important here that you do not get carried out to the outer curb, because the new curbs are quite narrow, and behind them there is a gravel trap at the exit. Last year we saw that the drivers made a lot of mistakes there.

      So we drove a lap on the Shanghai highway!"