Thread: WEC Race 2012 Six Hours of Fuji
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Old 18 Oct 2012, 05:12 (Ref:3153689)   #294
Purist
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I checked a few things from the WEC race, and the 2008 Japanese Grand Prix.

Removing the chicane ought to be beneficial. There are very acute corners at Fuji, other than the entry to the chicane, but they are less accident-prone for some key reasons. Very simply, neither of the two hairpins (Turns 1 and 6/7) have pronounced turns back in the opposite direction immediately afterward. Basically, you can't go as deep into them, or into them on a line as far to the inside, or else you will go off the track. With the chicane, if you run wide on the exit of the first right-hander (as long as it's not way too wide), you just keep going, because you're on the inside for the left-hander just after it, so nobody can take advantage of your "mistake". Removing the chicane means you can't make those same dive-bomb maneuvers at Turn 10 anymore, and still expect to have any hope of staying on the track.

Without the chicane, Turn 10 will still require significant braking from all classes. Dunlop would then be rather like the Coca Cola Curve (Turn 4), which also has an acute apex. The un-chicaned Turn 10 will just be somewhat slower than Turn 4, and to the right instead of the left. We saw passing at Coca Cola in the WEC race, and certainly see it, even within the same class, in the Super GT races.

I might add that taking out the chicane would make Turn 13 a noticeable braking zone, and would probably reduce the desperation factor for LMP drivers trying to pass GTs before that final sequence of corners. The LMPs will have more of a speed advantage coming in to, through, and out of Turn 10, as opposed to negotiating the chicane, thus making those last minute jukes into Turn 13 less necessary to pull off a pass. The increased speed going into Turn 13 will also make potential dive-bomb maneuvers there less advantageous/less likely (again, no sharp turn immediately back in the other direction to save you if you overcook it). Finally, that harder braking zone into Turn 13 plays even more strongly into the LMP braking advantage over the GTs, allowing them to more readily slip by without incident.

Under the right conditions/at the right circuit, the Turn 13-16 complex could be rather nice, but this is Fuji, and I have no intention of excusing what was done to 300R, or really, to the entire circuit. The 100R corner is still nice, but was probably more challenging/interesting in its previous form. Now, it's a fairly constant radius curve. It used to be decreasing-radius for the first part, and then opened out after that, while also have a higher entry speed. (Strangely enough, the run out of 100R to Hair Pin used to be longer, and Hair Pin used to be even tighter. It just seems odd to do that if F1's aim was to create more and better examples of exactly that kind of overtaking zone.)
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