125 replies to this topic

[ANF]

FLB, on 21 Jun 2020 - 16:48, said:

I read in interview of Hermann Tilke a long time a go (maybe when Turkey was being built) that one of the conditions is that the FIA Grade 1 tracks must fall within a certain projected average speed for F1... because a Grand Prix (305 km) must be run within 1h45 for TV reasons.

Maybe the F1 race distance should be adjusted to 1h45m if it so good. I would love to see 73 laps at Monza.
Oh, and maybe they should bring back refuelling as well...

[Myrvold]

FLB, on 21 Jun 2020 - 22:51, said:

The best (or worst, depending on your point of view) illustration of the problems with today's F1 tracks is that people lament about the 'good old Hockeheimring'. 

 

Most people loathed it, drivers in particular (ask Alain Prost or Nigel Roebuck).

 

I think that is more down to lack of diversity in the tracks now. I don't miss the old Hockenheimring race-wise, I don't miss having it in games, I don't miss it specifically.

I do however miss what it represented, one extra track that favours next to 0 downforce and high speed. A chance for someone to go with a low drag car to hopefully score some extra points at Hockenheim and Monza.

Which is why the outer loop at Bahrain would be nice, if teams had just known about it before they started building cars.

[HP]

PlatenGlass, on 21 Jun 2020 - 18:16, said:

If you've got a great design for a new track, make a new track - you don't have a butcher an existing track to do it.

Racers like challenges, to them it's not a big issue. IMO the issue starts when people are becoming nostalgic. I can be nostalgic too, but there is also the saying, that if things don't change, they are dead.

[as65p]

FLB, on 21 Jun 2020 - 22:51, said:

The best (or worst, depending on your point of view) illustration of the problems with today's F1 tracks is that people lament about the 'good old Hockeheimring'. 

 

Most people loathed it, drivers in particular (ask Alain Prost or Nigel Roebuck).

 

Well, for all things F1 that's really asking just a single opinion.

 

The old Hockenheim was quite unique, that alone is enough for me to rue it's passing. It wasn't always exciting to watch, but like Monza, despite it's outward simplicity it tended to make a difference in that certain drivers excelled on it and others not.

[BRG]

PlatenGlass, on 21 Jun 2020 - 21:26, said:

Was a survey ever done? In any case it's also about variety. You don't find the best track and clone it multiple times. Hockenheim added variety.

And I don't know why Monza escapes this criticism.

No. But your post implied that there must have been a survey as you spoke so authoritatively.  

 

As for Monza, i have never liked it either and have often said so.  It was a dreadful place before the chicanes were inserted and it got no better afterwards.  Its sole redeeming feature was the Parabolica - until the idiots gave it a tarmac run-off....

 

The Italian GP should be at Mugello IMO.

[absinthedude]

Alain Prost had a specific reason to dislike Hockenheim.......asking him may not get you an opinion that was shared by the other drivers. 

 

Was it a great racetrack? No. Was it unique, different, and perhaps even brutal? Yes. And it is missed. Not because it was an elegant, flowing racetrack but precisely because it was not. That old late summer season when we'd get the contrasts of Hockenheim, Spa, Hungary and Monza within a few weeks was quite something. And it's gone. Forever. 

 

I fully believe that the current Hockenheim has the right to call itself Hockenheim....but it bears no relationship to the circuit which stood there for so many decades. 

[BRG]

absinthedude, on 22 Jun 2020 - 19:18, said:

I fully believe that the current Hockenheim has the right to call itself Hockenheim....but it bears no relationship to the circuit which stood there for so many decades. 

I agree with both statements.

[ArnageWRC]

absinthedude, on 22 Jun 2020 - 19:18, said:

That old late summer season when we'd get the contrasts of Hockenheim, Spa, Hungary and Monza within a few weeks was quite something. And it's gone. Forever. 

 

 

One has to agree with this. The complete contrast between the high speed straights in Germany, followed 2 weeks later by the slow and twisty Hungaroring, then the glorious speed & corners of Spa, and finally Monza. I recall back in 1994 when Ferrari were on the pace at Hockenheim, and then not on the pace in Hungary.

I always enjoyed the original F1 Playstation game, with the old Hockenheim,  Spa with the 'bus stop' chicane, and Monza with the 'old' first chicane.......

 

All motorsport series need variety, which suits different drivers, cars, etc Having 'identikit' tracks does nothing for any series - and one of my bugbears is tracks changing solely for F1's benefit.

[BRG]

ArnageWRC, on 23 Jun 2020 - 09:56, said:

All motorsport series need variety, which suits different drivers, cars, etc Having 'identikit' tracks does nothing for any series - and one of my bugbears is tracks changing solely for F1's benefit.

Absolutely agree and I decry the 'Tilkedrome' syndrome as much as anyone.  But when a track is changed to provide a better and/or safer racing experience for both competitors and spectators, then I applaud it - not that it happens very often. 

 

An example might be the Porsche Curves section of the La Sarthe track, one of the most testing bits of race track you will find, and which replaced the rather boring  but dangerous White House section.  Another good change was deleting the silly Bus Stop chicane at Spa-Francorchamps in favour of a right-left sequence that has provided much entertainment and is more in keeping with the rest of the track (this opinion will prove divisive, however, as there are many with an inexplicable fondness for the Bus Stop).  

Edited by BRG, 23 June 2020 - 11:08.

[king_crud]

I liked the old Hockenheim at the time and still do, simply because it was something different. Also the first race i saw there was the 1991 event where Senna and Nannini had different tyre strategies and it created something a bit unusual

[Myrvold]

Just realized. Am I the only one who mentally refers to the old track as Hockenheimring, and the new one as just Hockenheim?

[Stephane]

It was always Hockenheim for me

[absinthedude]

Myrvold, on 24 Jun 2020 - 11:45, said:

Just realized. Am I the only one who mentally refers to the old track as Hockenheimring, and the new one as just Hockenheim?

 

I doubt you are the only one. I still sometimes think of the Nurburgring as the New Nurburgring or indeed the Neuburgring as it was jokingly called back in 1984.

[Risil]

Hockenheim was brilliant for World Superbikes. F1 never really had those slipstream battles, although it's interesting to see a track where the perfect setup was impossible. You were either slow on the straights or driving round the corners like they were covered with ice. Sort of a house-trained AVUS or Reims.

I'm sure it's a generational thing. It's always going to be the place where they held the unnecessary F2 race where Jim Clark lost his life.

[Risil]

BRG, on 23 Jun 2020 - 11:07, said:

An example might be the Porsche Curves section of the La Sarthe track, one of the most testing bits of race track you will find, and which replaced the rather boring but dangerous White House section. Another good change was deleting the silly Bus Stop chicane at Spa-Francorchamps in favour of a right-left sequence that has provided much entertainment and is more in keeping with the rest of the track (this opinion will prove divisive, however, as there are many with an inexplicable fondness for the Bus Stop).

I bet you it's because of the charming name. If it had been called "The Chicane Before La Source" no one would've mourned it.

[Risil]

Btw, thinking about tracks with chicanes before the finish line, has anyone mentioned Assen yet?

[Collombin]

Risil, on 25 Jun 2020 - 11:21, said:

the unnecessary F2 race where Jim Clark lost his life.

Every race is ultimately unnecessary, what made that one more so than any other F2 race?

[Risil]

Good question -- I'm just trying to summarize the emotions weighed against Hockenheim. Perhaps that's hindsight, that divides races into "vital" and "extra", normally based on whether or not they had Grand Prix status or whose trophies are still cared about today. But then again, Hulme wasn't there, and neither were McLaren, Ickx, Rodriguez or Rindt.

 

(Btw I had no idea grids for world championship races in 1968 were so small!)

[Collombin]

Risil, on 25 Jun 2020 - 11:39, said:

Hulme wasn't there, and neither were McLaren, Ickx, Rodriguez or Rindt.

But Max Mosley was - who else do you need?!

[BRG]

Myrvold, on 24 Jun 2020 - 11:45, said:

Just realized. Am I the only one who mentally refers to the old track as Hockenheimring, and the new one as just Hockenheim?

 

Stephane, on 25 Jun 2020 - 10:31, said:

It was always Hockenheim for me

They seem fairly sure at the circuit as what it is called....https://www.hockenheimring.de/en/

[ANF]

BRG, on 25 Jun 2020 - 12:09, said:

They seem fairly sure at the circuit as what it is called....https://www.hockenheimring.de/en/

And the name was the same in 1999. https://landkartenar...enheimring_1999

[Stephane]

BRG, on 25 Jun 2020 - 12:09, said:

They seem fairly sure at the circuit as what it is called....https://www.hockenheimring.de/en/

yeah, I know, but that was not the question

[BRG]

Stephane, on 26 Jun 2020 - 08:28, said:

yeah, I know, but that was not the question

I always call it just Hockenheim too, but that is nothing to do with its layout.

 

Why do we English-speakers all speak of the Nurburgring, the Salzburgring, the Osterreich/A!/Red Bull Ring, the Hungaroring, sometimes the Laustizring or the Grenzlandring but not the Hockenheimring?

[Stephane]

Same here in French-speaking land.

It's just too long to say it all.

[ANF]

BRG, on 26 Jun 2020 - 10:46, said:

I always call it just Hockenheim too, but that is nothing to do with its layout.
 
Why do we English-speakers all speak of the Nurburgring, the Salzburgring, the Osterreich/A!/Red Bull Ring, the Hungaroring, sometimes the Laustizring or the Grenzlandring but not the Hockenheimring?

I think I might have found the answer. Looks like it used to be called Motodrom Hockenheim?

[Risil]

ANF, on 26 Jun 2020 - 11:20, said:

 

I love this one. Apparently in the 1970s Mallory Park used to do open test sessions and a famous British motorcyclist (Mick Grant perhaps?) had a story about winding up out of a corner and then having Emerson Fittipaldi blast past in an F1 McLaren.