A couple of months ago I went to Spa as a guest of one of the teams to watch the GP. This was the sixth or seventh time I’ve been to the circuit at Spa-Francorchamps, but my first visit since ’95. The Bus Stop chicane and La Source have been changed (Bus Stop certainly for the better). The start straight is longer and the pit lane is wider than it was, but still what an estate agent would describe as “compact”.
Spa is like many of the older circuits has it origins in the local roads and today still faithfully follows the geography of the Ardennes. And that is one of the things that make the place so special. The trickier corners have been smoothed over the years, the big earth banks (see Zanardi’s accident in the Lotus in ‘93) have been replaced by run off areas with acres of gravel. These are good changes and all done in the name of safety, but the character of the place along with its ambiance is still there.
It could be argued that the only “original” circuits left are really Monaco (road course and so much tradition), Interlagos (a race track since 1940), Monza (laid out in a park and once again so much tradition) and of course Spa (follows old roads). Every other circuit in 2010 is a purpose built racing track, not saying that’s bad, they have great facilities and some have produced some good racing.
Valencia for a start is a great looking circuit and a contender for a visit from me next year. While it’s never going to compete with Monaco for harbour side ambiance, it does not need too as it’s not pretending to be Monaco.
The new Silverstone layout looks interesting. While there is tradition there with both in the track and the owners, it’s still a flat former airfield. Unfortunately I think the redesign at the end of ’94 really did take away a great track that separated the men from the boys. I understand why it had to be done after the deaths of Roland Ratzenburger and Ayrton Senna, but the old Silverstone was a circuit the brave loved and the rest feared.
Barcelona has established itself as a great place to race, 20 years ago it was one of the first of the purpose build “new” circuits and considered rather bland, flat and sterile at the time. Great facilities compared to many of the other circuits at the time, but the racing was rrely talked about after the weekend was over (exception – Mansell in ’95, but that had nothing to do with the track). Now I understand it’s rather looked forward too after a series of small ongoing modifications has turned it an enjoyable drivers track.
I do wonder if that’s in comparison to other “new circuits” that try to squeeze a lot of track into a small area. From the outside it looks that the design of the huge hospitality suites and “signature buildings” may be a bigger design driver than the quality of the racing. It just seems rather strange to me.
Le Mans still had the 1960’s rabbit hutch garages and a super narrow pit lane when I first went there with Spice in 1990, which ages me. If you took a wheel off you had to put it next to you, not behind you otherwise you risked a car coming along the pit lane and hitting it. It really was that narrow. Add that all work on the car had to be done in the open as there were no garages, just a tiny breeze block space to store a few parts. Finally, lets not forget that on top of all that there was thousands of gallons of fuel being put into cars during the race too, the fuel supply pipes ran across the ceiling of the garage.
When I went back to Le Mans in ’92 there was a huge new garage complex and it was far nicer to work there. I guarantee no one missed the old pissour at the back of the paddock with the dour looking woman running the place and her kids playing in the building. Being shot evil glances when you walked in with your own toilet paper.
The new complex was really state of the art at the time, massive grandstand, able to back the trailers up to the gages, a massive wide pitlane with a real wall. All things that were so long overdue, that made working there easier and much safer. But the atmosphere was different, everyone worked in individual garages rather than under awnings in the paddock and the social part was defiantly took a hit.
I’m not sure if it’s an indication of the lowering of expectations of what a good race is or acceptance that tradition comes second to printing money. F1 is expensive, so expensive it needs to keep looking for new revenue and a lot of that is coming at the expense of tradition.
Looking back to my first full year working for Cosworth there were more races at “traditional” circuits. Imola, Mexico City, Österreichring and the full Hockenheinring were on the calendar. At the time could not have imagined a calendar without Imola or any GP in France, but that is todays reality. We know Bernie is no respecter of tradition, and the future of the British GP was very, very questionable for a while. With so many teams based in England, not to race there is unthinkable to many.
Donninton has only hosted a handful of Grand Prix, but the best drive I’ve ever seen was at the European GP in ’93. That was Sennas’ day and his drive has quite rightly become the stuff of legend. It was a privilege to be there that day and see maybe the best driver ever absolutely destroy everyone else. Those are the days you watch sport for.
Singapore, Dubai, Korea and others have paid a lot of money to host races, and the money they spend buys some instant credibility in world sports and raises the profile of the host. It does not buy good racing, good design and thoughtful execution that’s sympathetic to the geography does that.
There is a now F1 track being built outside Austin to host a GP in 2012. The designer is Hermann Tilke (does most of Bernie Ecclestone’s new circuit designs, including Korea, Abu Dhabi, Valencia, Bahrin, Shanghai and many others) and has been asked to incorporate the outlines of famous corners from historic tracks around the world into the new track. It should be interesting to see what comes out of that experiment.