Darting around in a Formula 1 car

Describing what a Formula 1 car drives like is never straightforward.

This is my fifth F1 test and the task is no easier. You could argue that the wild ride would best be described by a journalist with zero experience in fast cars.

Conversely, if you asked Kimi Raikkonen to describe the experience, we would all fall asleep. No supercar gets close to the power-to-weight ratio of an F1 car. A 1,000bhp Bugatti Veyron at 490bhp-per-tonne is a feeble fraction of an F1 car. How about 0-160kph and back to stationary in 5.7 seconds? Welcome to the brutal world of F1. The 1,000bhp time-warp Ferrari F1 126 C4 tested here campaigned the 1984 season in the hands of Michele Alboreto, taking him to second place in the Drivers' World Championship.

A stroll around the sleek monster is a good start, and while I can see that the cockpit is alarmingly far forward, it also looks roomy enough. Incredibly, the 10in Momo steering wheel is fixed, which makes the job of threading your legs through the steering rack, chassis and fire unit a painful business. Fitting a removable wheel would be an obvious first job, but this is Italy where originality is sacrosanct and takes precedence over practicality.

The drivers' seats in this period were made from bin liners filled with two magic liquids that turned instantly into rigid foam;a bespoke item that would form arounda particular driver prior to trimming; perfect for two hours of 4g brutality.

In this case there was no seat and no problem as I was only due a ten-minute beating. Still conventional enough for a small team to run this car, I can see period instrumentation, a shift light, a control to adjust brake balance, another for front anti-roll bar and a simple gear lever.

The lever's slotted gate has a sub-gate of sliding fingers that prevent a driver accidentally wrong-slotting across the gate. The wets are soon swapped for slicks as the sun cooks the tarmac to a point where shoes stick to the ground. Two KKK turbos sit atop the V6 with their long megaphones sandwiching the wastegate exhaust. With the side pods removed you can see the radiators and massive intercoolers.

These early turbo cars had a reputation for suddenly and uncontrollably coming on boost. Even at high speed, the explosive rush of immense torque was enough to light-up the exceedingly wide rubber and launch the machine into the scenery.

Was there a price to pay for squeezing up to 1,300bhp from 1.5 litres? Read on.

To drive an F1 car, you need to do your apprenticeship in lesser cars and work up to this kind of insanity. I hope previous F1 drives, together with the experience gained from racing unstable and powerful turbo cars, means I can recall information without screaming; not out loud anyway.

The cockpit feels right. And like a 312F1 Ferrari I had previously tested, the 126 C4 has a homely feel. The car starts easily via the external starter and even idles smoothly at 1,500rpm thanks to a 6.7:1 compression ratio and a good ECU map. Before me, a 2.5km circuit of hot black-top. I pull the lever left and back into first gear, up gently on the clutch and away… Very user-friendly so far. Note that while my manual shift takes half a second, a 2010 F1 car does this in half-a-tenth-of-a-second.

An easy change into second gear and still on a feather light throttle, I am impressed with how easy the car is to drive but am reminded of stroking a psychotic cat — peaceful one second, and bleeding the next. The brake pedal is brick-hard and futile until the pads warm up. Brake discs are cast iron; in 1984, carbon discs were still in the experimental stage. With some heat in the rubber it is time to feel what is going on. On most cars, information is delivered via suspension movement. As an F1 car has precious little of this commodity, feel comes from the tyres.

The steering weight informs me of front slip angles, while my derriere decodes what is going on at the back. I slice across the kerbs. The dog-tooth ridges cause the whole chassis to flutter. I treat the kerbs with caution as they can ‘tip' the car, instantly removing the tyres' flat contact patches; fine if travelling in a straight line like in the middle of a chicane, and fine on ‘unloaded' tyres, but instantly chaotic if there is some side load.

Time to wake the horses up; I increase the rpm to 6,000 and get that calm-before-the-storm feeling that a surfer has as he is drawn up to the top of a Pacific roller. Then at 7,000rpm comes full boost; pinned to the bulkhead, it takes me to over 11,000rpm before the power tails off.

As long as there is just over 7,000rpm on the tachometer, there is guaranteed, lag-free, rocket-ship acceleration. I can feel the rear tyres squat and the transmission note changes — yes, with this much torque, gears have their own sound system. However, unless you like hospitals, you simply cannot floor the load pedal when the mood takes you. Provided I am in a straight line, with hot tyres, a dry track and a perfectly flat camber-free surface, there is enough elasticity in the power delivery for tyres to cope — just about. As for the noise, an F1 car somehow leaves this behind for Mr Doppler and the spectators to appreciate. Inside the car, you simply hear a hard but rising monotone rhythm.

Unlike a psychotic cat, there is a warning before pandemonium ensues. Power comes in with a gunpowder-whoosh rather than a dynamite-bang. At full throttle between 7 and 11K on the tachometer, there is an overwhelming tsunami of power. I can feel the whole mass of the car sit on its massive rear tyres. Direction feels governed by this rear road-roller effect, making me reluctant to add excessive steering inputs as sooner or later the nose will dip, bite and flick you off the track.

When the throttle opens, my head is pinned to the head-rest so hard that chassis vibrations wobble my vision. So far I could have been describing a dragster, but what about the corners? This is where I need a ‘dynamometer map' in my head. This way I can balance accurate power delivery with lateral g-forces. The drag coefficient is high to create downforce and spans 0.7cd to 1.2cd, depending on set-up. This is one area where 2010 F1 cars excel; in having more downforce at lower speeds and lower drag at high velocities.

In Franciacorta's tight turns, downforce is largely absent and this 26-year-old F1 becomes a mere car. I apply turbo driving techniques to deal with the lag, the non-linear delivery and the boost map. Finally I balance all of the aforementioned with cornering forces. As I hit the apex, I time the increasing rush of torque so that by the corner's exit point I am straight-ish and can use the power. Well, some of it anyway…

With my time up, I thought I would be glad to get out of this projectile, but I wanted to stay in it to discover more. I wanted to find that optimum five degree slip angle for cornering. I wanted to flirt more with braking and acceleration knowing that too much power, or lifting-off mid-corner would promote a spin. Today's non-turbo F1 cars have their own peculiarities, but don't be surprised when new generation turbos return to F1. It could be as soon as 2012. The motive will be efficiency and the electronics will tame the beast. The beat goes on.

1,000bhp

The lightweight 540kg body means power to weight ratio is a whopping 1,852bhp per tonne

Changing hands

This 1984 126 C4 had some work done to the existing monocoque, with modifications made to extend the wheelbase, remove the rear winglets, revise the suspension and redesign the rear bodywork ‘Coke bottle style'. The year 1984 also saw continuous engine development and many changes including a brief spell with aluminium engine blocks —a risky business with turbo engines.

In 1986, Ferrari sold the car to collector Piero Tonioli who never used it and kept it in totally original condition. Tonioli died in 2007 and the family sold the car to the current owner, collector Lorenzo Prandina. While Prandina regularly drives the car on race circuits, he has no plans to go hardcore motor racing.