Jehan Daruvala competes at Red Bull Ring in 2020

Formula Racing

Check out this detailed guide to the Red Bull Ring by Jehan Daruvala

The Formula 2 racecar driver from Mumbai takes us through a circuit that feels like home for him and other drivers of the Red Bull Junior Team.

Written by Deepti Patwardhan

5 min readPublished on 05.07.2022 · 18:33 UTC

Read this article in Hindi.

It will be a homecoming for Jehan Daruvala as the Red Bull Junior driver returns to Spielberg, Austria for the F2 race weekend from 8th to 10th July.

Jehan, who is the only Indian in the F1 feeder series, is currently fourth on the F2 leaderboard, with 80 points from seven rounds.

“The Red Bull Ring round of the Formula 2 series is a home event for us Red Bull juniors because Red Bull is an Austria-based company and also own the track,” the 23-year-old says.

“This is probably one of the most picturesque venues we visit, nestled as it is amidst the lush green slopes of Austria’s Styrian Mountains. As a result, the track undulates quite a bit and driving around it can feel like riding a rollercoaster.”

At 4.318 kilometres, the Red Bull Ring is one of the shorter circuits on the F2 calendar. Jehan takes us through the scenic circuit:

Starting line and first straight

It begins, as always, with us speeding flat-out down the start-finish straight.

Turn 1

The track begins to climb as we go into the braking zone for the right-hander at Turn 1.

This is a pretty straightforward corner. The apex is a little bit unsighted because of the uphill gradient and you also have to watch for the barrier on the inside.

Turn 1 has a generous amount of run-off area on the outside but you have to be careful not to run across it as there’s a yellow sausage curb that sits on the outside of the exit rumble strip.

Mounting it can cause the car to at best bottom out, costing you valuable time, or at worst it can launch you into a spin ruining your lap before it’s even really begun.

Turn 2-3

The exit out of Turn 1 is crucial as it leads onto a ‘curving’ straight. You’re flat out through the slight kink of Turn 2 and the track climbs up dramatically again as you approach the slow, right-hand hairpin of Turn 3.

This is a heavy braking zone and you can see a few lock-ups into this corner, but generally the uphill gradient helps us slow the car down.

There are a few different lines you can take through this corner but what you’re really looking for is to get on the power early and get a good exit because the corner opens up onto another long straight.

You don’t want to lose any momentum coming out of the Turn 3 hairpin as the track begins to drop downhill part-way down the straight.

Turn 4

Absolutely flat-out, we’ve built up quite a bit of momentum as we approach another right-hander at Turn 4.

Braking for this corner is really tricky because you’re going downhill and carrying a lot of speed. The corner is also off-camber so it’s very easy to lock up the front-right as you brake and turn in.

It’s very tempting to carry a lot of speed through this corner as you don’t really want to sacrifice the momentum you’ve built up. But, if you go into it too fast, you’ll find yourself running out of road pretty soon and understeering wide and off into the gravel.

Turn 5

This is a flat-out right-hand kink that leads into the double left-handers at Turns 6 and 7. This is a sequence of fast corners but you have to again perfectly judge the amount of speed you carry into it.

Turn 6

This is especially is another off-camber corner and you’re really having to fight the understeer all the way through it as you try to keep the car on the racing line while carrying as much speed as possible.

What makes this even trickier is the fact that we’ve basically been turning right all through the lap until Turn 6, so the tyres on the right-hand side of the car, which have to bear the load through the corner, are pretty cold.

Let the car run up onto the exit curb but be careful not to drop a wheel into the gravel, because that can cost you a lot of speed, before chucking it into the second left-hander at Turn 7.

Turn 7-8

Turn 7 is fairly straightforward as is Turn 8, a fast right-hander. You’re accelerating all the way as you go through Turn 8 which opens up onto a short straight stretch that leads into Turn 9.

Turn 9

The track climbs as you approach Turn 9 and you have to begin turning into this downhill right-hander just as you go over the crest. You need to balance the car on the ragged edge as it’s crucial to keep the momentum up all the way through this corner.

This is another corner where it’s easy to get too greedy with the throttle pedal and run wide. But what you want is to run up on the exit curb. You give the car a short burst of acceleration as soon as you hit the apex and all the way through the exit phase before you have to jump on the brakes and go down through a couple of gears to slow yourself enough for the final corner.

Turn 10

This is another downhill right-hander. You have to get on the power early, before you even make it to the apex. You drive the corner with the throttle pedal before nailing your foot flat to the floor as it opens up once again onto the start-finish straight.