What Does It Look Like To Go To Plaid Around Fuji Speedway?
Tonight, thanks to the Bathurst 1000, the World Endurance Championship's 6 Hours of Fuji and shortly afterwards, the Formula One Russian Grand Prix, you can watch racing all night long. What's it like to run in the fastest car from qualifying at Fuji, you ask? Ride along with the #17 Porsche 919 and find out.
Welcome to Onboard of the Week, a feature [that I'm going to bring back more often now that racing is slowing down for the year] where we spend that pesky time between races during Fox Sports 2's long commercial breaks looking at awesome footage from inside the car.
We've featured onboard footage from the warp-speed low-flying spacecraft known as the 919 before, but it just never gets old. First off, Fuji Speedway is a beautiful track surrounded by mountains. Secondly, this thing whizzes past its GTE-class Porsche brethren like they're standing still. Thirdly, watch as it blows past even other purpose-built racers in the slower LMP2 class without even breaking a sweat.
Perhaps this is the reason why Porsche went with simple, squared-off letters running down their cars. It sort of looks like plaid from far away, if you accidentally lose a contact lens somewhere. These cars go to plaid.
Bonus: watch driver Timo Bernhard get a bit frustrated at the number 99 GTE Pro-class Aston Martin doing a dive in front of him at around 43 seconds in. Dude, chill out. It's not sopping wet like Petit Le Mans (in practice, anyway). You're not going to beat a blindingly quick LMP1 in a practice session, bro.
Bonus #2: Want a little more commentary so you know what to look for during the 6 Hours of Fuji? Here's Extreme Speed Motorsports' Ed Brown's narrated lap of the circuit from onboard their LMP2-class Ligier JS P2 Honda:
Look at all those buttons and displays! It's not as good of a view outside the car as the Porsche, but it's hard to resist posting the view inside their cars. There's no room to tape the track map onto the steering wheel like you see in many other race cars, so there it is on the roof instead.
The number 17 Porsche started from pole today, and the ESM Ligier starts in 17th position, at the back of the LMP2 class. Full qualifying results can be found here, or you can tune into the race right now on Fox Sports 2 and/or the WEC app.
Have an awesome onboard video to share? Drop me a line at stef.schrader@jalopnik.com or post it in the comments below.