Turin lap times

Posted 27 July 2003 - 18:22

I would like to exercise the combined brains of TNF with a little poser.

In 1955, Jean Behra set the fastest lap at the Turin Grand Prix with a 1 min. 43.1 sec lap; a speed of 90.86 m.p.h. This was the circuit used, it was 2.61 miles long...



Now, this circuit incorporates a little of the above one...



...and it was 1.81 miles long.

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to estimate the lap speed or the lap time that Behra would have achieved had the race been run on this version of Valentino Park, rather than the first example.

My gut feeling is that the lower track would be slower, but I'm no great judge of these things.

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Posted 27 July 2003 - 19:22

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Posted 27 July 2003 - 19:25

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Posted 27 July 2003 - 19:56

Just to confuse things, this is the map that accompanied Autocourse's report of the 1955 race:



A similar map appeared in Motor Sport

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Posted 27 July 2003 - 21:17

Oh no! Not ANOTHER Turin circuit.

Now I really am confused!

However, I would be inclined to trust Autocourse and Motor Sport. I think the answer lies with Multimap or Maporama because all these Turin tracks can be seen in the park nowadays and a length comparison would not be that difficult.

My Turin (the first map above) is obviously much longer than the one Roger posted. If we use the second map and assume that to be correct at 1.81 miles, it should not be too hard to check to see which of the other two are nearer to 2.61.

I think Roger's maths are probably pretty close - they usually are. So thanks Roger, I'll go with a time around that, but...... should I redraw my track, because I didn't realise the shorter of the 2 was pre-WW.2.

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Posted 27 July 2003 - 21:30

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Posted 27 July 2003 - 21:38

As a Torinese myself, here is my interpretation of where the circuits were plotted using a modern map from ViaMichelin.com:









Not sure if it helps.

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Posted 27 July 2003 - 21:39

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Posted 27 July 2003 - 21:47

So there is.....

Mickey - thanks for going to all that trouble. I have done the same thing myself and agree exactly with what you have posted.

Seeing as you are from Turin, would you mind popping down there and measuring these tracks so that we can get a definite correct answer?

Only joking!!!!!

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Posted 27 July 2003 - 22:37

Barry

I'm on my way there with my ruler, hoping that the hookers and drug dealers inhabiting the park don't mistake me for a prospective customer ;)

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Posted 27 July 2003 - 22:43

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Posted 28 July 2003 - 13:13

Just for completeness' sake, I've tried to plot the other configuration seen on Darren's site:




I've no idea if this is correct, as that hairpin just after the start line doesn't appear in the maps I have. So I pretended there was an extra road there and this is the - quite mediocre - result:

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Posted 29 July 2003 - 01:09

I tried to calculate lenght for each layout using Maporama. These are my results: coloured lenght are calculated by me and are approximated (but they can give us some ideas about true lenght).
All maps are at the same scale.



This is 1937 layout, 2920 m long. Error in calculation is quite small, so there are no problem about this!

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This comes from Roger Clark's post; it should be 1955 layout. 1955 circuit was 4200 m long: is there such a big mistake in my lenght calculation? Maybe, I don't know!

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This is 1952 layout, according to Roger Clark's post. It should be 4200 m long, so my calculation is quite exact.

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This is the fourth layout, posted by Mickey. As he has already said, it's not possible to find all streets in Maporama or viaMichelin maps, so this is quite approximated (there could be also some problems about zoom). I show two different possibilities; I think the most correct one should be the blue one (same posted by Mickey).

There is something wrong on this map: it should be 1948 layout, but this was 4795 m - 2.98 mi (according to The Gel Motorsport - The Formula One Archives). Such a big difference means that layouts shown on my map were NOT used in 1948.

So, I think that original map is a nonsense: maybe it is something VERY approximated, as we discovered also in Les Sables d'Olonne thread.

Ciao,
Guido

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Posted 05 August 2003 - 14:27

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Posted 11 August 2003 - 00:28

I have just come back from Turin and I have to say that surely we were ALL wrong about 1948 layout.

Originally posted by Mickey
I've no idea if this is correct, as that hairpin just after the start line doesn't appear in the maps I have. So I pretended there was an extra road there and this is the - quite mediocre - result:

This is impossible. I don't tell you why, I only show why:



This photo is taken exactly where "extra road hairpin" is supposed to be: circuits come from the right and should go directly where there is this... ehm... little obstacle

So I confirm that map posted by Mickey (and originally sumbitted to Darren by alessandro silva) is inaccurate, as there is no possibility of such a layout. As it happens with Les Sables d'Olonne, this map is more or less correct, but a little deformed.
I think that this should be the correct layout:



I took 31 photos about all the park and I have enough data for try to draw a better map, but I think I'll do it in September, as I have no time to do it now.

Ciao,
Guido

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Posted 13 August 2003 - 02:34

Originally posted by gdecarli
I have just come back from Turin and I have to say that surely we were ALL wrong about 1948 layout.

Well, to be honest I notice today that Dan King on his Racingcircuits.net drawn the same map I posted here and last update of his page is 27 October 2002 21:46:24 GMT Standard Time. I always use his website, but I don't know why this time I miss this map.

I took 31 photos about all the park and I have enough data for try to draw a better map, but I think I'll do it in September, as I have no time to do it now.

I had a little time, so I'm uploading them (they are 49, not 31), but only with usual map and without any comment. This will come in September!
This is a sample of a thumbnail:



Ciao,
Guido

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Posted 09 April 2004 - 19:26

I finally have just updated my website with all layouts and track lenght.
Here following some samples:



More details and source on my website

Ciao,
Guido

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