VIR is the marquee track for this year’s One Lap of America. It is one of the most renowned and loved road courses in America. Despite that, I’ve never been to it. Never driven it. And aside from a few IMSA never really watched much racing on it. None of that is intentional, VIR is on my list of tracks that I want to run, its just been bad timing and lack of opportunity.
Once again, TOMO providing the coaching for the lap. My takeaways are that there are a couple spots where you can gain a ton of time, and there are some spots that if you overdrive you’ll lose a ton of time (I guess that can be said about any track). Turns 3, 12, and the 16+17 complex are points to maximize speed; where turns 10 and 11 are places that can deceive you and you can lose a lot of time.
In my first couple sim runs I could run fast laps in the 17.5s fairly consistently, however there were many inconsistencies in my laps. The track is so fast in most places it tricks you into over-driving in others. In the lap below you can see I mess up the line going through Oak Tree. Ultimately not a huge loss of time, but still need cleaning up and more practice.
Driving notes:
- Brake ~3 marker into T1
- Accelerate at apex, wide track out,
- Stay mid or right into T3
- T3 turn in is at right side curb, use all of extra pavement on exit
- Hard brake into T4
- Patience into T5-5a, accelerate at apex
- Flat through all esses, touch the curbs
- Slight lift into 10, stay mid or right
- T11 is a slow 4th gear turn
- Give up 11 to get good exit on T12, use all track out
- Brake into T14 at the 3 or bottom of the dip
- Roll through T14, straighten the car brake hard for T14a, stay right to open T15
- Accelerate at apex at T15
- Careful braking into T16+17 complex, use 3rd gear.
- Hard acceleration to finish once car settles through apex of T17