Well Grant, acknowledging that these are some personal impressions of a newbie in track-driving (I haven't driven anywhere else than Spa, yet) some highlights:
The Raidillon is an absolutely thrilling experience. Coming from the
La Source hairpin you speed downhill till 4th gear at 180 km/h and you break just slightly after the bottom of
Eau Rouge before driving up that tarmac wall, still with sufficient throttle on. At that point you actually don't see anymore than 20 meters or so of track. The car is well settled on the road however due to the increased gravity. Coming up, you can get over the left curb-stones (still in fourth) and then the right paint marks while pressing full throtlle for the long straight till
Les Combes . At the end of the straight I was usually at 200 - 220 km/h (5th gear) before hitting the brakes. The corner is turned in in 3th gear. Then you have a number of nice corners where it was a challenge to find the right line. I found the
Rivage to
Pouhon part quite difficult, because in addition to the corner you have to adapt to the negative inclination of the track (also downhill again). In this part it was amazing to see the lightweight-Caterhams flying by...Then there's the long turning straight to
Blanchimont , which is taken at 160 to 200 km/h. Over here, finding the line is not easy, because it's so long... Then you arrive at the chicane, called
Bus Stop . This one is actually re-designed (as it is on the map here above is the old version). Braking before the chicane is very intense but made effective and reliable by the Porsche Brembo's and Pagid blue with AP600 liquid. These brake pads whistle but not in a too disturbing way
.
Coming out of
Bus Stop you accelerate full again, going by the F1 Pits, before taking the
La Source hairpin, in 2nd gear. There's a lot of space to get out of the corner allowing you to accelerate quite early again. At that point you're between the paddocks and the concrete spectator tribunes (which nicely echoes the sound of the Flat6 coming out of the Sports-Mufflers
).
I think the weakest part of the gear (apart from me being still learning) were probably the tires. I was on my street-rims with Conti SportContact2 tires. If I will continue tracking the car (of course) more often it would probably make sense to have a dedicated rim-set with street-legal track tires (such as PZero Corsa)
.