Now I don't know much but I thought I knew that the historically difficult corners that tightened up the further round you went are now BANNED from modern F.1 circuits.

Well.....



In case anyone doesn't know, this is the 'wonderful' new Chinese Grand Prix circuit in Shanghai.

Can we have a few decreasing radius corners listed, please?

Doesn't the rule give a maximum speed for a decreasing radius turn?

That said it's a shame. The original first turn at Hermanos Rodriguez that tighted and then went the other way was brilliant.

Turn 1 at the track #2 of the Autodromo Oscar Galvez in Buenos Aires, Turn 1 of the old Mexico track. I will look for some more later

Arturo

I dont like decreasing radius, its too easy to defend. That and kinked entries. They ruined the passing zone in the new turn 1 complex at N-Ring by dramatically kinking the entry and adding that stupid dip. Instead of having a great overtake zone, they created a corner where any kind of move usually ends in damaged cars.

How about Burnenville, definitely tightens at the end both in GPL and real life.

And first corner at Cadours !

There are some good ones, yes, let's have them back!

Warwick Farm had the entry to the Causeway, very tight, approached from a sweeping bend... those days they had to get onto the brakes as they were straightening up. Today, of course, they'd be going 40mph faster and braking well after they got straight.

But it was a great place for a pass, rarely a tangle.

How about the lefthander, going into "The Boot", at Watkins Glen? Would that be considered, as well? Nice, very fast downhill, into a turn with no runoff!

I thought the rule now was "If Tilke designs it, it's OK"

Some of those hairpins look absurdly tight, too

They can't be serious!? :\

I'd rather watch 'em run on that white perimeter road!

When I started this thread, I started one about the new Chinese circuit on Reader's Comments (I know, I know....) The interesting thing is that over there, most people seem to think the Shanghai track is o.k.

I think this simply underlines what we have always thought about the differences between TNF and RC.

The old Stowe at Silversone could be pretty darned exciting, luring you in by appearing so open and fast, only to find that outside kerb on the exit suddenly lunging out to grab you... The second apex at Woodcote Corner, Goodwood, provides a similar effect... That great authority Eddie Jordan appaently regards Shanghai as being a magnificent facility, setting new standards. For what one wonders? Air conditioned celebrity facilities? Laundry machines for gentlemen's wigs??? Nappy-changing provision for drivers?????????? Wasn't it the Miss World pageant which sought solace in the developing world when the First World moved on?????? Is there some similarity - surely not???

DCN

Yeah, that looks a little like Zandvoort ;)

How many days of bloodthirsty rioting were there after that recent Miss World in Nigeria? -- can't see that happening in BernieWorld....

You obviously weren't at Brands in 1975!

Or perhaps 76?

This is just Lewis rummaging in the attic that is his brain and finding half of what he was looking for...again...but I'm sure I read somewhere last year, when this layout was first mooted, that it is the shape it is because it mimics a Chinese letter or pictogram.

Can't remember where I saw it, can't remember what the meaning of the symbol is, but it would appear that the suitability of any given corner on that circuit for overtaking is dictated by the Chinese alphabet and language!

APL

Did you say Miss Pregnant??
Who's that??



Since 1-1-2000
The millenium that was,
A nice Time to think it all over
Beiing
In the pits
that where it all happens..
today..
I don't to take F1
seriously... anymore..
In fact, Do you?
Really???
Paul Hooft

Alan wrote



Correct, Alan. It is, apparently, the symbol for Shang.

Old hat really. We have had a track that copies a letter in our alphabet for years. The letter is 'I' and the track is Santa Pod.

Two of the most famous (and trickiest) decreasing radius corners were to be found at the old Kyalami circuit - one downhill, and one uphill.

The first one was Crowthorne, and it was always a bear to manage, but extremely satisfying if you got it right. One season I was racing a 1200cc Alfasud, and my main opposition was a brace of Mazda rotary RX-2's. I would pull out a reasonable lead round the back end of the circuit, but then they would come screaming past me down the straight.
Trouble was, with the RX-2's crappy front suspension they would have to get on the binders at the 300 yard brake marker in order not to chuck it off the planet at Crowthorne - I could sail past until the last brakemarker flicked out of sight, get on the anchors, change down, and chuck the car in, all in almost the same motion. And be past them by Jukskei. That was a corner that really rewarded a car that handled well.

The second one was Leeukop - it was always a delight watching triers like Brabham and Rindt through there. That corner tightened up seriously on you - you'd come bombing in, and hardly feel the need to touch the brakes, since it was uphill. Then, two things would happen: the corner would suddenly get a LOT tighter, and the runoff area .... disappeared. To be replaced by a concrete wall, seemingly inches from your left wheel. Followed by the third surprise. As you'd got through the corner and got on the throttle, the track would fall away from you into a considerable downhill. And this was where triers like Jack and Jochen provided great pleasure. No feathering the throttle to 'feel' the power onto the track - they would absolutely JUMP on it, tyres howling as they fought for grip, and leaving black scrawls of rubber as they belted towards the Kink. Great to watch.

Decreasing radius corners? Let's have 'em back, I say.

What about Curva Parabolica at Monza?
You say it's an increasing radius corner, don't you? OK, but what about The Race of Two Worlds (Monzanapolis), 1957 and 1958? The circuit was used in an anticlockwise direction, so Parabolica was a decreasing radius corner!

Ciao,
Guido

What about Curva Parabolica at Monza?
You say it's an increasing radius corner, don't you? OK, but what about The Race of Two Worlds (Monzanapolis), 1957 and 1958? The circuit was used in an anticlockwise direction, so Parabolica was a decreasing radius corner!

Not exactly correct, they used the High Speed Bowl!!
Paul Hooft

Of course you are right!
The most dramatic thing is that while I was writing my message, I was watching at a videoclip (downloaded from Monzasport website) and I was quite disappointed because all video were on Circuito Alta Velocità

But I'm sure that a friend of mine went there by bycicle riding in anticlockwise direction! It's a good excuse, isnt'it?

OK, for me it's time to go to bed :yawn: , I'm not good enough neither in finding excuses!

Ciao,
Guido

I loved Silverstone from the video game Grand Prix Legends. Its one of my all time favorite track layouts in history. I dare not even think of what a lap of that place would be like with a modern car, it'd peel your skin off even in something as sedate as a Formula 3 machine.

Doubt that it would be as fast as Leyburn, had that continued and got a decent surface...

And the second part of Hamblin was not only tighter than the first (by a tad...) but also approached on a slight downhill.

Barry Boor... and other alphabet observers...

Airstrip circuits did lend themselves to this sort of thing. The letter 'T' was common and seen at places like Fishermen's Bend and Caversham. The digit '1' was used at Strathpine, but the most innovative was the 'D' at Caversham.

and how about the hollowell/stavelot combination? while technically 2 seperate corners i suppose, they appear to drive as one decreasing radius corner.

There was the Turn Eight decreasing radius/off camber at Riverside, critical one-before-the-straight.

There still is, I think, the 8-9 decreasing radius puzzle at Willow Springs. The landscape outside the turn was rutted and rocky, and I saw many dustclouds and not many fewer ticking ovoid metal sculptures engineered there. On an atypically cool day I misestimated the warmup requirements of my tires and spent several anxious seconds bouncing and sliding my way toward the pit lane and salvation.

John Morton describes Turn 9 this way:

"Leaving Eight you just have time to glance at the tach to check your top speed before entering one of the world's worst: Turn Nine. This turn is very hard to get right, but essential for good lap times. It is a top gear turn in most cars, a 90-degree decreasing radius right turn with an exit you can't see until you get there. Enter from the left, but move right slightly in the early part to give yourself some room for error. There is a strong tendency to apex too early because it feels safer. Try to avoid this because you'll have to lift at the exit. Pick a reference that identifies the apex for you. You should be approaching full throttle before the apex in even the fastest car. The exit brings you to the outside of the pit straight and the end of your lap. Like any difficult track, Willow Springs requires lots of practice. But remember, your crew can see and hear every mistake."


Frank S

Here 'tis: Shang

And Shang




Can you see it?



Yeah, me too.

I designed a slalom (autocross, tralom . . . moderate-speed, one-car-at-a-time, against the clock, paved surface) course for a small car-park in the shape of a Disney rodent. Semi-circles and a hairpin, among other squiggly bits. At two laps per run, a good time was had by all.



Frank S

Honestly, Frank?

A real 'Mickey Mouse' circuit?

I confess: in true juvenile fashion I took the warnings as a challenge. "Anything on this little lot has got to be Mickey Mouse." And so it was.


Frank S

Excellent. And I bet you were the chuckling one, all the while.

I bother you again with Curva Parabolica, because yesterday was not completely wrong.
Surely Monzanapolis was held on oval circuit, but in 1993 there was a proposal for a new oval circuit at Monza that should have used Curva Parabolica in anticlockwise direction.
I couldn't find any map about this proposal, but after having read its description on Autosprint, I tried to draw it: my attempt is on my website.
After some consideration about track lenght and its description, I think that this proposal should have used also a little part of Curva Nord Alta Velocità, on the old oval (but of course I'm not sure about it ).

It should have hosted an Indycar racing in 1995 (IIRC), but of course this proposal was never developed!

Ciao,
Guido

There are two (!) decreasing radius curves at Suzuka - first corner, and Spoon.

Although first corner is more or less tho corners...

On a slight tangent, I read the other day that Bernie hasn't given the design of the 'new' Tukish circuit to Herman Tilke...sounds like good news to me.
I reckon new tracks should be designed in the same way as the 'great' golf courses were created, ie. walking the land and making the layout fit in, not by some techno-head sitting at a computer terminal.

If only, chippi, if only....

But then that would mean we might get (whisper it) hills and off-camber corners and decreasing radius turns and..... Oh, hush my mouth!!!!

I'm sure you know when I meant
Clarification accepted in the spirit it was intended.

Interesting memory perhaps - I worked with Tom Wheatcroft when he won the planning permissions necessary to restore Donington Park as a racing circuit. The basic outline of the pre-war course naturally remained visible amongst the general overgrowth and scrub. He sent his chaps round in their bulldozers and graders to follow the general line, and then briefed them to carry concrete kerbstones round on a flatbed truck, "...and toss 'em out where the road goes...".

Which they did.

The track follows the line where the kerbstones landed.

DCN

That Chinese character looks a bit like Mickey Mouse too.

More on topic - where did Mr Tilke get this literally narrow-minded idea that a straight followed by a hairpin is a recipe for overtaking?

It's a recipe for hairy moves that will look like quirky, wobbly, last-gasp lunges that run a huge risk of going wrong one way or the other.

The recipe for overtaking is a straight followed by a medium-speed corner, possibly but not necessarily with a slight banking. This way there will be braking involved but there will also be a variety of lines in and out, which will cause the entire surface of the corner to be free of dust and tyre rubble, allowing for clean overtaking moves.

I'm sure we can think of a couple of old-school corners that fit the bill perfectly.

I'll start off with Tarzan.

The recipe for overtaking is drivers with the nerve to do it. Those who can do, those who can't bleat.

The best overtaking is where a sweeping corner (not a flat out one, however) is followed immediately by a braking area for a tight one with multiple entry possibilities.

Home of the brave...

Currently the HRCC of Qld are laying out a circuit somewhere near Kilcoy. KB has walked the land with them, I suspect it should have some interesting possibilities.

Is that the old perimeter circuit, before the upgrades. The old circuit was considered tres ordinaire in the '50s and early '60s. In 1956, speeds on the Hangar Straight just about exceeded the 140mph mark. By the '70s Ronnie Peterson was taking Woodcote at over 160mph, his Lotus all-a quiver, and then it was a different story.

Which suggests the capabilty of the car is a major factor in determining difficulty of corner types. What makes a difficult corner for the modern rocket-sled?

I'm sorry, Roger, but that's stating the bleeding obvious. I'm sure you'll agree that, given the same driver with enough nerves to do it, some tracks are better at facilitating clean overtaking moves than others - which is the point of this thread.

I'm sorry, I had missed the point.

I thought that decreasing radius turns left less margin for error, and therefore allowed the best drivers to show their superiority. They were more difficult in other words. That seemed to be the reason they were banned 35 years or more ago. The ability to overtake and the facilities for the corporate guests seem to be the only criteria by which modern tracks are judged.

Agree on the second one, but not sure on the first. You're right in one way, though - some of the corners on Tilke's tracks look like they were specifically designed to induce overtaking instead of offering a driver challenge. But then he goes all wrong in the premise that straight-leading-to-hairpin is the best and only way to meet those initial design criteria. So we are worse off twice.

And I better rephrase my last comment into "the point of my post"...

Well spotted!

And of course, now we have an "O" at Rockingham and the old Great Auclum hillclimb course was a darned good "W" if I remember right.

I feel a totally separate thread coming on.

APL

Talking of Rockingham I was there this weekend for the F3/GT/SEAT/Minis/TVRs.

The road circuit there is far from being the greatest in the country - it's a bit point and squirt - but the organisation and the lengths they go to to make racing into an event there is incredible. They've packaged decent racing and turned it into a family day out.

Plus points:

(1) it's an all-seater stadium and the view from the stands is magnificent. We sat in several seats and I doubt there's a seat in the house that has less than 80-90% visibility of the circuit.

(2) There are a lot of attractions for non-fans, so there's plenty for families to see and do if they're not hardcore racing fans.

(3) Catering facilities were efficient and sensibly priced.

(4) SEAT put a lot of effort into making this meeting an event, with subsidised (£1!) tickets etc.

Minus points:

(1) Circuit layout is a bit uninspired. Very "modern".

(2) Marshalling wasn't quite up to the standards of some of our other circuits yet.

(3) Split paddock - support races miles away in the outfield, main races in the infield.


Watching Peter Baldwin and Bill Sollis tearing off the banking at 4 and along the main straight in Mini Miglias is one of the more surreal racing sights I've seen - we were so high up in the stands (we had a youngster in tow and she wanted to go right to the top!) that the Miglias reminded me of Scalextric ;)

Rockingham are claiming 44000 people attended. I've seen the future of British racing, and it may not be a purist clubbie thing, and I hope there's always a place for hardcore events, but it could well work....

pete

I've been working off-and-on (for ages now) on an 'alphabet' of real circuit maps - just a capricious thing since I am, by training, a typographic designer - was hoping it would be finished and printed early this year but have had many distractions...

The best I recall in this moment are old Misano (before 1992), on the left, and of course Nardò, on the right!



Ciao,
Guido