National track characteristics

[Quintin03]

As Luiggi brought up some countries have tracks which all or most share a couple characterisics. We have come to the preliminary conclusion tracks in the UK are either nearly flat former RAF airfields or have great elevation changes. Any others?

[ECW Dan Selby]

Spanish tracks are generally very twisty, or atleast have twisty infield sections.

Selby

[Quintin03]

Classic Belgian circuits, Mettet, Spa, Chimay et cetera, Zolder and Nivelles are Hugenholtzian circuits, are fast, have über long straights yet they're located at ordinary country roads.

[duke_toaster]

Japanese tracks - or at least the older ones - have a penchant for fast and/or long high-G corners.

[LuiggiSpeed]

*copied from the original post but totally pertinent*

I'd say american circuits are composed of rather random sections. except for Miller,and maybe Barber, the rest are organic circuits a la Road America or Mid Ohio.

Even Indy makes no sense at all, it's like "Okat lay the section there where it fits and then connect with that one there where the museum ends and make some kind of turn here around the parking lot...try not to hit the lake"

What I call those?

Oh yeah..circumstantial tracks!

But the kings and queens of circumstantial tracks must be the ones here in Puerto Rico!

The "tracks" here were an old USAirForce airfield from WWII they turned into a dragstrip, they made a turn where the chickens and hens sh**t, made a straight all the way to a concrete wall, put another corner where the cows paste, send it back doing twists under a metal bridge, put some concrete barriers with pointy iron rods protruding (one of them may still has my friends blood) and thats a circuit.

The other one you picture the walls of China and lay a track 1 feet away from it, add some manholes and a spearhead barrier straight in your way and that's the other one.


Fortunately, both are closed and were still waiting for the Sabana Seca to expand and be a real, purpose built track.

[LuiggiSpeed]

Now on a more serious tone, I'd like to divide the tracks between "scientific" or "geometric" tracks and "organic" or "circumstantial" tracks, where the former are likely to be found in Spain(hence the term "spaniards" ,Ricardo Tormo, Catalunya) and the other type are mostly in US,(Indy,Road America) now we have a third distinctive type, the 'british" or "airfield" types( Silverstone and who knows what)

I believe we may have yet another type, the "german" tracks, in which there's a long straight that ends in a bulb, then it comes back all the way, into another bulb, and that's a circuit. Any names comes to mind?

[bio]

Noone's mentioned yet one of the (if not "the") true homes of motor racing, home of quite several truely legendary venues - Italy. What about Italian tracks?

bio

[Quintin03]

I think purpose built Italian tracks like Monza, Enna Pergusa and Imola are very fast in their original shape at least. The road circuits on the other hand are or mostly were incredibly long and actually quite slow like the Mille Miglia, Targa Florio and Mugello which has now become a purpose built track like the ones mentioned above.

[LuiggiSpeed]

Originally Posted by bio

Noone's mentioned yet one of the (if not "the") true homes of motor racing, home of quite several truely legendary venues - Italy. What about Italian tracks?

bio

Good point!!!

True, many European "tracks" started out as pieces of road. That be a 5th type. Thanks bio for your valuable input.

[ScotsBrutesFan]

Originally Posted by Quintin03

As Luiggi brought up some countries have tracks which all or most share a couple characterisics. We have come to the preliminary conclusion tracks in the UK are either nearly flat former RAF airfields or have great elevation changes. Any others?

You have summed up Scotland's 2 tracks in that one post....

Cars and Bikes around Knockhill with 200ft (65m) highest to lowest points on a 1.38 mile (2km) loop
Bikes (regional level) only East Fortune circuit which uses a quarter of the Former RAF East Fortune. IIRC that's 1.54 miles with effectively No gradient at all.

[bio]

I agree, Quintin, purpose-built Italian tracks seem to radiate speed. Take the three M's - Monza, Mugello and Misano.

bio

[duke_toaster]

The Australians quite like their temporary circuits.

[Purist]

I would agree with the comments made about British circuits. I would, however, point out that UK airfield circuits seem to often be more open and flowing, with fewer fiddly bits (at least originally) than is the cars with suck circuits elsewhere: Germany, Australia, and the US.

The old French circuits were generally fast, public road courses. The newer, permanent tracks don't seem to have much of a theme going. Nogaro, Paul Ricard, and Magny Cours don't really have anything in common particularly.

I can't say that German circuits have much of a unifying theme either, except for AVUS and the old Nurburgring having that bulb turn going on.

Austria produced, fast, flowing, undulating road courses with no really slow corners: Osterreichring and Salzburgring.

I would say that the newer Belgian circuits have somewhat geometric shapes (Nivelles and Zolder), but are faster with more rounded corners and longer straights than the Spanish circuits.

Italian circuits definitely seem to fall into the two previously mentioned groups. You have the long, twisty,public road courses, and the fast permanent road courses. However, I would not put Misano in with Monza, Mugello, Imola, Vallelunga, and Enna Pergusa. I lso would say that there are a smattering of more technical courses in Italy, with Misano being one of them.

With Eastern European circuits, they tend to like esse bends, with some variation in the tightness of the turns and separation between turns: Most, Grobnik, and Euro Ring. Some of these tracks aren't quite as skinny in profile as the aforementioned: Hungaroring. The permanent circuits of this region also have some tendency toward have circular, carousel-type corners: Brno, Hungaroring, and Poznan. The countries in this area also utuilize(d) a fair few temporary circuits.

The two main Dutch circuits feature a number of fast corners, though Assen features more pronounced kinks while Zandvoort has abundant sweeping curves.

Scandinavian road courses, with a smattering of exceptions, seem to be either long and skinny or have a sort of blob shape. They tend to be fairly short, with quite a few of them under 1.5 miles, and very few over 2.0 miles. A number of them are street or airfield circuits. Many of the oldest Scandinavian track were simply laid out on frozen lakes.

Finally, for Europe, we have the Iberian circuits. however, I would not lump the Spanish and Portuguese road courses together. Spain has produced rather more geometrically shaped road courses. These, perhaps, tend to be a bit shorter than the Poruguese road courses. They generally have tighter corners, and a greater number of corners for their length, which makes the straights relatively short in most cases. Both countries have or have had a number of street circuits or public road courses. However, Spain has retained virtually none of its historic temporary circuit, whith the only active street circuit I know being Bilboa (a recent addition). portugal, on the other hand, retains two of its best known temporary circuit, albeit in truncated form: Vila Real and Oporto. The Portuguese road courses tend to have more open layouts with more rounded corners and rather flowing layouts overall. Of course, you have to go back in the archives to see this clearly with Estoril, ever since the changes were made for the bikes in 2000.

[ptclaus98]

Actually, on American circuits, I would say that, with the exception of airport tracks, they're very primitive geometric designs. A lot of constant radius corners, fast corners, and a long straight here and there. At least ones built before the mid 90's.

[duke_toaster]

Originally Posted by Purist

However, Spain has retained virtually none of its historic temporary circuit, whith the only active street circuit I know being Bilboa (a recent addition).

I think Bilbao was only actually used once, for a Renault 3.5 race in 2004 or 2005.

[Quintin03]

Originally Posted by Purist

The two main Dutch circuits feature a number of fast corners, though Assen features more pronounced kinks while Zandvoort has abundant sweeping curves.

I think this gives a false impression of what this country has to offer. Basically Dutch circuits can be separated into two categories: car circuits (Zandvoort and two airfields) and motorcycle circuits (the bulk of other circuits). Car circuits in this respect aren't very interesting as they share little. On the other hand the many temporary motorcycle circuits do share a lot of characteristics. They can be divided into two categories: short circuits through built up areas and slightly longer circuits through open land. Both are filled with right hand curves. The open circuits can also be divided into two groups: the flat circuits in the main part of the country and the circuits with some elevation in Limburg which are also narrower. Sadly only two of these temporary circuits remain.

[jab]

German circuits are often quite eccentric - old Hockenheim, the Nordschliefe, AVUS, Grenzlandring, Norisring, the public road circuits like Solitude and the old Sachsenring

Now they just tend to be cold, soulless, often difficult to overtake at and very safe, a complete contrast to the old style (perhaps as a reaction?) - the new Nurburgring, Oschersleben, Lausitzring, new Hockenheim, new Sachsenring

[ptclaus98]

I dunno, I quite like the new Sachsenring.

[jab]

It seems OK for bikes but it's probably too narrow and twisty for bikes

[LuiggiSpeed]

Originally Posted by jab

It seems OK for bikes but it's probably too narrow and twisty for bikes

Is that small bikes and big bikes?

[duke_toaster]

By a small bike, do you mean this?

[jab]

Originally Posted by LuiggiSpeed

Is that small bikes and big bikes?

Very wide bikes with 4 wheels and a steering wheel

[ptclaus98]

Originally Posted by jab

It seems OK for bikes but it's probably too narrow and twisty for bikes

Assuming you mean cars, take a look at the GT Masters race there a couple of weeks ago. I bet Superleague Formula would go off well there.