August 27, 2011
Published on tags: Superleague
This week it's Midnight Motorsport driver Dave Carr-Smith taking us for a lap of Interlagos.


Commentary: Lee Morris



Q) How happy are you with your laps so far and do you think the Midnight is well suited to Interlagos?


- We haven't done many laps at the circuit yet, we're giving ourselves a short break before getting on with the testing at Interlagos. From the few installation laps I did the car felt good, we had a good balance in the car and were able to reach a reasonable top speed along the top straight. It's difficult to tell how well suited our car is to this track until we see what times the others are doing, but initial impressions are good. Historically this is a track we have gone well at so hopefully we can get a strong result here given how comfortable the car is to drive here.


Q) Which corners/track sections do you think are most challenging for you as a driver and which do you believe are most critical for getting a decent lap time here?


- The first and last corners are key to everything, getting a good run out of the final corner is vital for being able to carry good speed up the hill and down to T1, it's a difficult corner to get right as you're trying to carry a lot of speed through a varying gradient within the circuit, it's quite easy to find yourself with an unstable car at this point on the track and more often than not you end up over driving the entry trying to get a better exit, which serves only to hinder you further. Equally T1 is just as difficult, most people will be hitting the 190-200mph mark as in Montreal and with T1 being such a heavy braking zone it's difficult not to lock up as the track drops away, it's incredibly important to have a clean first turn here so that you can get a smooth run through T2 and on to the following straight, if you run deep into T1 courtesy of a lock up you more often than not end up under attack heading into T4 at the end of sector one.


Q) In your own words, how would you describe your driving style?


- Having had so much experience with a wide variety of cars my style is pretty adaptable, I can adjust it accordingly to most cars, but if I were to define the sort of car I feel meets my natural driving style best I would have to say I like a car with a very pointy front end. It's the way I learnt to drive this style of car when I first started sim-racing, get the nose in and sort the rest out when you get there. This sort of approach does have its downsides, I use trail braking more than most in order to balance the car which can have an adverse effect on your brakes life expectancy. I think this is part of the reason why I am so strong at tracks like Monaco and Hungary, I have confidence in the front end of the car which allows me to throw it into the corners without concern for under-steering into the wall or off the circuit; I'd much rather be dealing with over-steer than under-steer.


Q) So 2011 has proved to be a great debut season for Midnight so far, so do you think that the team can maintain this run of good form in Brazil and beyond?


- I don't see why not; it's not been the best of seasons with a few unexpected problems but we've definitely exceeded our expectations in terms of where we are in the championship standings at present. We put in a lot of track time for Montreal and learnt some new things about the mod which I believe will help us as we move in to the final races of the season. As I've mentioned before, historically we've been pretty quick at Brazil, so hopefully the trend continues and we can aim for a top five finish for both cars, at the very least.