UPDATE: Toyota F1's Ricardo Zonta sets Laguna Seca record
After nipping the old Champ Car track record on Friday, Toyota F1's Ricardo Zonta well and truly demolished it Saturday and Sunday, finishing the weekend with a best time of 1:06.309 Sunday morning.
Zonta's time is an impressive 1.413 seconds faster than Helio Castroneves' 2000 record. With his lap times falling in every on-track session, Zonta and his TF106 certainly entertained the crowd, adding some front straight donuts as the finishing touch.
Zonta has posted short articles over on SpeedTV.com all weekend, and his recounting of a Formula 1 lap of Laguna Seca will make interesting reading for anyone who has ever had the pleasure of lapping the course.
Source: SpeedTV, MontereyHistoric.com]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Ian 9:16AM (8/21/2006)
Thanks for reporting on this.
But why do you find it "impressive" that a modern F1 car beats a SIX YEAR OLD CART car by only 1.4 seconds?
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jil 9:25AM (8/21/2006)
It's a great feeling to be the fastest man ever around Laguna Seca.
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gkz 11:24AM (8/21/2006)
#1
1.4 seconds is actually a pretty big margin on an unfamiliar track in a car that wouldn't be optimized for it. Also, as Zonta wrote on the Speed site, the area of the track where an exceptional driver could make up the most time was too bumpy for him to take advantage of.
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Ted K 11:31AM (8/21/2006)
Keep up the PR events and side show work, Toyota F1.
Caus we all know you AIN'T winning any races.
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Apex 11:52AM (8/21/2006)
I still want to see what an F1 race weekend would do to the track record.
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Ian 1:30PM (8/21/2006)
Zonta has raced on the Laguna track before, so it wasn't an unfamilar track to him to him.
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Matt 2:29PM (8/21/2006)
My car is the fastest car to lap my drive-way.
It's only that way because nobody invited Ferrari to try.
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Craig 2:53PM (8/21/2006)
"But why do you find it "impressive" that a modern F1 car beats a SIX YEAR OLD CART car by only 1.4 seconds"
CART cars had nearly 900 hp in 2000 when Helio set the track record. Since then, the spec tires and motors have yielded 1'10"s over the past couple of years. Plus the fact F1 cars are slower with the V8's this year.
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fizzandpop 4:23PM (8/21/2006)
I saw a Ferrari test driver FAIL to beat that record in Shuey's 2003 car a couple of years back. If you've been round that track at any great speed, you'll apreciate that it's really bumpy, really dusty and has all a completely blind corner at the corkscrew. It's nothing like the sort of tracks that F1 cars were designed for.
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infinitespecter 6:15PM (8/21/2006)
You all forgot to mention that he was also on medium tires, which he said weren't optimal. They were sliding all over the place. You can even see the rear end give a little in some corners. Given that the Toyota isn't the fastest car on the grid, they were on the wrong tires, they didn't have any specific aerodynamic or suspension setup, and Zonta hadn't raced on that track since 1998, the record is all the more remarkable.
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