Stage guide · Mars Cup round 1
Stage 1 — The Eight
Stage 1 is the loop: a 2,676 m night run through twelve gates that finishes nine metres from where it started. It climbs 40 m over its first four gates, from 65 m to a 105 m summit, falls away through the middle of the stage and drops again into the last corner before a short rise to the line.
How it drives
A figure of eight. Every corner from gate 2 to gate 6 is a right-hander and every corner from gate 7 home is a left-hander, so the stage is two lobes driven in opposite hands. The gates are 27 to 41 m wide with 155 to 311 m between them, and six of the ten corners turn 50 degrees or more — the sharpest, 81 and 80 degrees, sit either side of the summit at gate 4.
Pace notes
The first gate is 51 m out, uphill, on a line that barely bends. The first real corner is gate 2, a 35-degree right 287 m in.
Gates 3 and 5 are the sharp ones, on the climb and the descent either side of the summit. Brake for those two; the rest of the right-hand lobe flows.
Gate 6 is a 19-degree kink at the foot of a 300 m descent, and the hand changes there: from gate 7 every corner is a left.
The last drop is the steepest, 29 m over the 255 m from gate 10 into the 65-degree left at gate 11. Set your speed before the crest, not after it; the finish is 311 m on.