After twenty hours of air travel through four countries, my 21-year old chauffeur meets me at the front of Nice airport and leads me to a Porsche Cayenne Turbo that not only has his father and sister riding in it, but is also stuffed to the brim with bags, suitcases, helmets and other personal belongings. It is so full that everything needs to come out and get re-packed for my stuff to fit in, and even then, we were lucky to squeeze a tube of toothpaste in the gaps.
Yet despite being cold, tired and hungry and facing the prospect of spending the next 200 odd kilometers in this Balikbayan box on wheels, given the chance to do it all again, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Because asides from the fact that it was completely my fault why I couldn’t pick up my rental car (another Deakinitis story for another time) you would have to have low-grade diesel running through your veins if you were going to turn down the opportunity of being driven to an international race track in the South of France by what could very well be the Philippines’ first Formula One driver.
Meet Marlon Stockinger. If you haven’t already heard of him, don’t worry, because by the time he gets done driving a Lotus F1 car on the streets of Manila and around the Mall of Asia this May4-5, he will probably be on enough billboards to make the Azkals look camera shy.
This young Filipino Swiss karting champion, World Series racer and GP3 Monaco winner has been climbing up the ladder of international motor sports for ten years now, and after thrashing his two team mates in the Bernie Ecclestone-owned F1 feeder series last year, was given a proper F1 test last Tuesday in the famed Paul Ricard circuit.
After shoe-horning the last piece of luggage in, we make the two hour drive straight from the airport to the circuit where Marlon met with the engineers of the Lotus F1 team, finalized his seat fitting, went through the complex sequences involved in bringing an F1 car to life, then ended with dinner with the mechanics and a skeleton plan of how the most important day of his career so far will unfold.
I spend my one and only night in Europe in the Grand Prix hotel by the track, and by 7:30am the next morning I was checked out and back at the garage where Marlon was meeting with his chief engineer, Rod Nelson––more famously known for engineering both Fernando Alonso’s world championships in 2005 and 2006.
Marlon is handed a fifteen page manual on how to perform the very basics of operating an F1 car. This is not one of those patronizing redundant operating manuals you get in your new car that dedicates a whole page to how to use the cigarette lighter or warning you not to drive your vehicle while sleeping, but a mechanical nosebleed of vital information.
Marlon pores through it with an understanding far greater than what would be expected of any twenty one year old, and by 9:12am, he is finally climbing into the cockpit for his first installation lap. This may be Kimi Raikkonnen’s Grand Prix car, but because it is rebuilt from the ground up, it is basically a brand new car in the eyes of the mechanics so all the fluids need a chance to find their way through the engine and hydraulics before allowing Marlon to turn a wheel in anger.
He does two installation laps on wet tires. Nothing heroic, just more of a systems check really. Although the sun is out, the engineers are worried about putting him on slicks after 5mm of rain had soaked the track the night before. Eventually they give in and Marlon peels out and slowly and starts feeling his way around the famed test track.
He may have raced here before, but with over 167 possible configurations, it makes other tracks seem like an oval in comparison. I pop on a set of team headphones to listen to the broadcast between Marlon and Rod.
“It is frightening at first to just trust the downforce of the car because everything tells you that there is no way you can take a corner at that speed, but amazingly it does.” Marlon’s voice crackles over the radio. And when asked about the brakes, he replies profoundly: “The brakes are just the most amazing (unprintable) brakes I have ever tried.” He finishes off much to the amusement of the team.
Over lunch, Marlon explains that while the acceleration and top speeds are not too far off what he’s used to in his GP3 car and now his World Series car, it is the suffocating downforce and eye-popping brakes that has blown him away. “It is even better than I imagined!” He says while devouring his second plate of pasta. “Everything just happens so much quicker, it is almost difficult for your eyes to keep up” He beams with genuine excitement in his voice.
The afternoon session arrives and Marlon is a different person. It is almost as if he has matured ten years in the last 3 hours. He hops into the car and there’s a different rhythm to his driving. You can hear the gear changes, the downshifts and the progressive acceleration all developing into its own unique melody. No longer do you hear the hesitation in the engine note that comes from a lack of confidence; Marlon is driving with a much deeper understanding, squeezing the performance out of the car with measured aggression, and the car is responding beautifully to it.
You don’t just hear it as he screams around the track, but you can see a visual snapshot smoothening out on the lap tops and monitors around the garage. His application of the throttle and the brakes are more fluid, the power curves more rounded, his steering inputs more committed which in turn, has his team more invested.
What may have started out as an evaluation is quickly becoming a revelation. Because although no one is formally allowed to talk to the press on these matters, the team seem genuinely impressed with Marlon’s consistency, his feedback, his maturity, and despite it not being a priority, his speed.
I’m told over and over again that they just want him to get comfortable in the car and that lap times are not important. But telling a racer that his times are not important is like telling a bull not to attack the red cape, and Marlon ends the day 1.2 seconds faster than the reference time set down by Lotus F1 test driver, Nick Prost. Not much is said after. But enough already has.
