F1 racers show off their superior controlled slide skills

Sauber F1 team drivers Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu have used the Australian Grand Prix as an opportunity to test their drifting expertise as well. The footage comes from Sauber Motorsport on YouTube and was supposed to be a tutorial for the drivers, but the instructor resigned one lesson in, admitting their superior skills.

The event was held on the Calder Park Raceway in Melbourne and features specially prepped 600-PS (592-hp / 441-kW), rear-wheel-drive cars. After a demo lap, an instructor approached the drivers with an offer to try and cook up some drift donuts at an enclosed area. Both completed the test easily.

The second lesson was called “Parking”. The drivers were asked to slide in the shape of an open number eight and then parallel park in the tiny spot designated as the “garage”. It took two attempts for Bottas to do the trick. Guanyu also missed the “garage” spot during his first attempt and hit a traffic cone with the rear end on his second, but the instructor still called it a success.

The final task was rather unexpected. The racers were asked to drive down a track in a controlled slide, smashing cardboard boxes in the process. As it turned out, the boxes were all filled with green powder paint. Bottas totally didn’t expect that and bailed out after hitting one; Guanyu wasn’t nearly as shocked.