F1 Street Circuit Forum Game

[Penfold]

F1 or off topic....

Come on! This requires some dedication but it could be good fun. We know Hermann Tilke is GREAT at designing circuits. We now Formula 1 is always looking for new STREET CIRCUITS to race in. We have Baku, we have Las Vegas, we have New York. IT NEVER STOPS! For this reason, I want you to grab a map (Google Maps, Google Earth, etc.) and design your OWN STREET CIRCUIT. Might be difficult. Here are a few recommendations of cities:

1. London
2. Paris
3. Los Angeles
4. Tokyo
5. Your country's capital

Create a diagram of the circuit and let's work out a few nice street circuits. I'm currently working on a race in central Stockholm, I have two lay-outs and I'm not sure about either.

Circuit 1:

This feels like a bit of a Tilke design really. A few long straights with heavy braking. The North-West section is rather interesting as the track first climbs up a smaller road before flying across the bridge and down to a decent overtaking spot. Still, quite a lot of 90 degree turns. Hard to avoid in a city.



Circuit 2:

This circuit is a bit longer and could possibly provide a more flowing circuit. In addition, it passes several sights such as the House of Parliament, the Royal Castle and many more. The southern island is the "Old Town" is Stockholm. Near the center of the track, you'll find a very long right-hander. This track features fewer obvious overtaking spots but several potential spots.


Fire away!

OK, the first track is too short I see now. The second is almost a bit too short also. I SHALL RETURN WITH MORE. How about combining the two? Hmm.

EDIT:
Here we go! This track combines elements of both previous tracks. Super massive straight leading to the first corner though. Very Tilke. Otherwise I think it's done a good job of avoiding too many 90 degree turns.

I prefer your second attempt to no. 3, particularly the cleaner Western half, but pair it with the Eastern-most bridge crossing from your third effort - that central route with roundabout is too fiddly.  Going to cut the track to under 2.5 miles, but nothing wrong with short street circuits.

Said to be discussions about Vegas hosting a GP: http://www.grandprix247.com/2014/10/18/las-vegas-set-to-return-to-host-f1-grand-prix/

So with that in mind, I shall grab a map and see how easily the city lends itself to a circuit - can't do worse than the Caesars Palace (car park) GP.

Ah, good idea. Vegas circuit. I shall try it too.

After a quick(ish) first go, I wouldn't necessarily say that Vegas roads are a natural choice for an interesting GP circuit - especially as any track must include a chunk of the strip, and corners which aren't 90 degrees are kind of scarce.  Anyway, 4.5 miles of uninspiring tarmac (start/finish in front of the Bellagio):

Where once there was a valiant effort to one-up modern-day track designers, now lives only a dead link to a defunct image hosting site.  So sad.  So sad.


Another attempt later, and then perhaps we should try Madrid: http://www.grandprix247.com/2014/10/21/plans-emerge-for-madrid-f1-race/

Well, your attempt looks better than what I managed to create. Las Vegas definitely isn't good for a street circuit. I'll go Madrid.

EDIT: Madrid does lend itself to F1 better. There are tighter corners, less 90 degree roads and quite some open wide roads. This is just a very first attempt. I'm using a small portion of "Gran Vía" which is pretty much the Madrid equivalent of the Strip. There are many areas to use, it's difficult to know what part of town you actually wish to go by!!

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Yeah, I couldn't really improve on my first attempt so I'll leave Vegas to Tilke... and wish him the best of luck.

Your Madrid one actually resembles a proper circuit, with a more varied mix of corner type than Vegas allows - just one question: how long is it?

It's 5.54km or 3.44 miles. So it's definitely not the shortest but also not the longest. I think it would come out as quite a high-speed track too.

Hah. At 5.54km it clocks in at exactly the same length as Sepang, Malaysia.

Definitely some quick sections on it.  And I prefer it to Sepang.

There's a road called the Calle Senda del Rey running through the Parque del Oeste (over by the river to the West and slightly North of your chosen area) which has a beautiful 'Esses' quality to it, just trying to incorporate it into a circuit.  The road has an awkward junction towards its Western end with flyovers joining the party - perhaps they could cut me a notch out of the park so I can run the course round onto the Avenida de Seneca?

Go for it. Meanwhile, I tried Örebro. It's the city of future F1 nobody Marcus Ericsson. Let's pretend he wins 4 world championship titles because Caterham goes all Brawn GP in 2015. He then makes sure F1 gets a street circuit in Örebro and it would look like this.

You two evidently have far too much time on your hands...

If I could be bothered to do it I would have a stab at a Barcelona street circuit, although I've always liked the Catalunya track so wouldn't want that to be replaced.  Barcelona has some nice wide boulevards which could work well and if a way could be found to include the seafront it would be quite a scenic lap...

I definitely have too much time on my hands, I have been on sick leave from my work for the last three weeks and am not scheduled to return for another two. I do enjoy my time off.

Yeah. How about London?

Tower Bridge, Whitechapel, near the Gherkin, down Bishopsgate and across the water to The Shard, then back to the lovely bridge. How is this for a circuit with landmarks? Not a great race track perhaps...




New layout. Skipping Whitechapel and going on a funnier route through the City of London:

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Right. More F1 circuits. Rome this time. There were talks a while back I recall. This one passes the "Colloseo", but you know what that is. It also goes past the "Altare della Patria", a pretty damn huge impressive monument. Decent space for paddock at the Southern point. Clicks in at about 4.2 kilometers



It's a fast track but not too many braking opportunities. Could probably do with some Tilkefication to add some hairpins and whatnot.

One thing it doesn't need is to fall prey to Tilke's long-straight into hairpin fetish.  Actually looks quite neat as it is, although a quick detour across the river would be an interesting (but probably awkward) addition.

[Chrill]

I went for the Copenhagen circuit. Copenhagen has a lot of 90 degree turns so this one was tricky. I opted for a lot of running next to water and going past some sights.



The start/finish straight will be at one of the main roads of Copenhagen, the HC Andersen Boulevard. We'll turn right, diving around buildings in Old Town before taking a quick right-left hander across a plaza in Strøget, a CAR-FREE shopping district and one of the longest pedestrian shopping streets in Europe.

After a succession of corners, we reach a right-hander by the water. We run next to the water before negotiating a 180 degree turn (tricky one, it sharpens near the end!) onto the Slotsholmen island to swing past the magnificent Christiansborg Palace, today used as the parliament building. We pass the palace and head down to some water again, before running next to the water. This section includes a tunnel just after crossing the water to leave the island. This stretch of road (almost straight) sees full throttle for about 1.1 kilometers. That's 50% of the Baku Street Circuit's straight, so it's not as absurd as it may appear.

After turning right at the end of the straight, we reach a section with lots of slow to medium speed corners. This section passes some office buildings, among them the seat of the Danish police force. This comes to an end at the sharp 90-degree turn which passes by the amazing amusement park Tivoli (really cool, slap bang in the middle of Copenhagen) before heading back on to the main boulevard where the start/finish line is. A lap of about 4.5 kilometers is completed.


Do take the time to read up on the sights if geography or history is your thing. Copenhagen is beautiful.

[Chrill]

Right. Helsinki then. With Kimi, two Rosbergs, a Hakkinen, and maybe a Bottas too, it's a nation of proper racing pedigree. They need an F1 race. However I didn't put a great track together here, none of them were. I'll have you decide.



Yellow circuit is very high speed, red circuit a bit trickier. They both use a lot of seaside and take in some of the Helsinki sights, such as the Helsinki Cathedral. Not as much to display as Copenhagen, or maybe I don't know enough about the city. I visited Copenhagen in 2016, I visited Helsinki sometime in maybe 2005.

[Chrill]

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/london-mayor-f1-race-possible/4315014/

Well, guys. Let's go to the outskirts of London and design us some F1.

[Chrill]

London Docklands? It's a difficult area to build in, but hey maybe this fast track with a tight twist bit at the end could work (we run it counter-clockwise, start by the convention center at the top!).

Green is an alternate route, but could just as well be used as a main straight with the depot on the other part.

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Decent effort but it's not exactly a scenic part of the capital.  People might be just a tad disappointed to have a London GP run through an industrial estate!

[Chrill]

Don't blame me, blame Sadiq Khan and Liberty Media.

[Chrill]

Some more variants in the area:



Red: 5.8km/3.6mi (In comparison, Silverstone is 5.9km or 3.67mi)
Yellow: Virtually same distance
Orange: 6km/3.72mi
Blue: 5.9km/3.67mi

Starting by the convention center in a clockwise direction, we encounter a super tight 180 degree turn bringing us up above the track on a roundabout. Hurrying South, a chicane take us through the next roundabout. At the bottom of the track, we mimic the famous Ascari esses in Monza through another roundabout (Really, Britain?). Heading West now, we negotiate some sort of residential area which offers two decent overtaking spots (entering the area, and the tight lefthander). Speeding back around to the convention center, we're presented with many different road options. Yellow arguably offers the best overtaking possibility, but orange perhaps adds the most different type of corner, a rather high-speed long sweeping corner. Hurrying East, back to the start, we are presented with two options: Red takes us around the convention center, blue takes us underneath it in a parking garage. Endless possibilites for something very unique down there!

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We do love our roundabouts!

On your second map, where you cut into the residential area in the South of the circuit, I do wonder whether those roads would be wide enough for F1 and if there's sufficient space to line the route with barriers.  Of course, a London GP is highly unlikely - who will cover the annual losses? - so Tilke won't have to struggle with carving an appealing track out of such as uninspiring slice of the city.

[Chrill]

We could just let them pass that residential area. With the use of some mighty DRS, that section will be GREAT. It could even have a dual-DRS zone with a new detection around the halfway point so that whoever you pass may repass you. GREAT.

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They should definitely speed past that residential area, and then just keep going and going until they come to a part of London that a TV audience might actually recognise as being our capital city.

[Chrill]

To be fair, a race right in the middle would cause major disturbances to that part of the city. Realistically, we won't get a race much closer to the City of London than this.

[Penfold]

I'm pretty sure that the closest F1 will get to a race in the City of London is something like 60 miles.