Losail's easy. If you know it like the back of your hand..
When I go to a new track I don't really have a set way of trying to learn it, do you?
Some people study YouTube clips, others dig out the PlayStation. I usually stick to a couple of gears for the first couple of sessions and work on my braking points, taking time to pick out any markers I can use when I get up to speed.
If I go screaming out of pitline trying to set a fastest lap, I take nothing in, tangle myself up in knots and never actually make any real dent into my early lap times. It's those slower early sessions that give me crucial pointers that add up to a few tenths off here and there.
However, Losail was different. On the plane, the other journos who had been there before were talking about how difficult Losail is to learn.
So before the first session Pere Riba stepped up to run us through the track layout - a briefing that's usually totally ignored by all the foreign journos in particular: they just want to go as fast as they can on the coldest possible tyres before lobbing it, usually.
I was glued to every word Riba said about the track. Losail is that flat, that featureless, any info Riba could pass on was gold dust. I've never actually studied a track map before heading out and certainly never scribbled any gear info down, but this time it was priceless..
