This is Mark Webber tackling Istanbul Park’s four-apexed Turn 8 during last Sunday’s Turkish Grand Prix. The on-screen accelerometer shows that he’s subjected to a lateral acceleration of 4.7 g for his entire 6-second journey through the corner’s four apices.
The acceleration pins Webber’s head, supported like every other modern F1 driver’s head by neck muscles a football player would be proud of, against the side of the cockpit. By way of comparison, when the Space Shuttle will take off for the last time on June 28, it will subject its crew to 3 g.
With Istanbul Park’s likely disappearance from the Formula One calendar after this season, fans of high-g corners will have to migrate from Istanbul to Austin, where the Circuit of the Americas—set to host the US Grand Prix from 2012 on, and designed, like Istanbul Park, by Hermann Tilke—will feature a reproduction of Turn 8 in the shape of Turns 16, 17, and 18.
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