What is the fastest way around the hammerhead?

Danny Tran

Danny Tran

or <br /><div class="bigusername">Tranny Dan?</div
Joined
Dec 20, 2004
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Montreal, Canadaland
Ive seen the Stig sometimes grip and sometimes losing grip at the Hammerhead, but then I see the low-end torque RX-8 kick the back-end in 09x02.

So what is the quickest way?
 
it depends on the car. the hammerhead is meant to test fwd cars so rwd cas react differently and depending on each individual cars suspension setup yadda yadda. theres a mathermatically quickest line which im sure some1 will illustrate but not every car can do it quickly and as efficient
 
fastest way is to not bother turning left.

hew-owever, what you don't want to do is to get understeer at the hammer head, particularly when doing the right turn, because that will compromise your speed all the way down to the second last corner. Or too much oversteer for that matter

ideally you want to keep it neutral and get as wide as possible on the exit without losing speed. but a little bit oversteer would probably be preferred over understeer.

I unno, something like this, red is brake, green is throttle, yellow is the bit you need to shorten depending on how fast you wanna go... it's probably all bullshit

hammerhead.jpg
 
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That's what I was going to attempt to draw too. That would seem to be the best way round.
 
A mate of mine wrote an alogrithm that calculates the fastest way around a track. A pity he's working in the US now.
 
theres a fastest racing line yes, but how different cars achieve it with maximum speed is completely different. the straight line is the shortes distance between two points but not neccesarily the fastest in situations, for example sometimes its faster to take the backroads home than the highway due to traffic
 
wooflepoof said:
theres a fastest racing line yes, but how different cars achieve it with maximum speed is completely different. the straight line is the shortes distance between two points but not neccesarily the fastest in situations, for example sometimes its faster to take the backroads home than the highway due to traffic
Click to expand...

Needless to say, the only constant traffic jam was in the opening sequence from Seasons 1-7, and they got rid of that in Season 8.
 
first off the RX8's tail came out because of the shift in side to side load (mainly), it could have also started because the car was breaking, the throttle was then planted to achieve a wider line(instead of just sticking near the inside


main problem i see with Blythys line is that you would be slightly quicker DURING the wide right hander, but your exit speed would be sacrificed, I think for that track you would want to ease towards the outside of the corner, if that makes any sense

i would recommend a line like Blythys if instead of going onto a strait the sweeping right turned into a very hard 90 or something, assuming you could brake while turning very slightly



woofle has the right idea as you always have to judge the "importance" of each turn, two identical corners could be taken differently if a abstract set of needs is in order, say your trying to pass someone, or one corner has a much longer strait after it(assuming the corners where consecutive), changes in elevation can also really mess with things though as well (especially in a car with a suspension binding problems :) !!)



i don't know for sure though, i'm still new to the whole line thing,
 
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I'd suggest the trap of the corner is that you can go faster through the left than you should. If you back off more than you have to for the left, you'll be in a better position to brake better and keep the weight transfer more ideal to take the right without understeering or oversteering and to get the power on earlier. Almost certainly deliberate by Lotus to catch out people that take the left as fast as is possible, then get caught out on the right.
 
STrRedWolf said:
Needless to say, the only constant traffic jam was in the opening sequence from Seasons 1-7, and they got rid of that in Season 8.
Click to expand...

Yes, they put up a sign with "Road Works" and redirected the cars to the A-6. Into the buss lane, to be precise.
 
Blythy said:
fastest way is to not bother turning left.

hew-owever, what you don't want to do is to get understeer at the hammer head, particularly when doing the right turn, because that will compromise your speed all the way down to the second last corner. Or too much oversteer for that matter

ideally you want to keep it neutral and get as wide as possible on the exit without losing speed. but a little bit oversteer would probably be preferred over understeer.

I unno, something like this, red is brake, green is throttle, yellow is the bit you need to shorten depending on how fast you wanna go... it's probably all bullshit

hammerhead.jpg
Click to expand...

Are there any other pictures or top down views of the track?
 
can't find any great aerial views of the track layout, the one I got was from google earth and I had to draw the track and the "racing line" hence the unbelievable shakiness of my lines.
 
It's an increasing radius right corner after a really fast slight left, so I would brake as late as possible,and take an early apex, as soon as I'm past the apex, givre all the throttle I could while keeping my line. slow in, fast out.
 
I think you could get a better exit speed if you broke later and harder and took a later apex coming out which would make up the time for the extra distance you'd havre to travel
 
yes i think your right on with the later apex idea, but how is the stig going to brake "harder and shorter" if hes already driving the nuts off the car
 
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