GP of India - Preview

Welcome mate, good news, thanks for the updates.

Fingers crossed you get the job..

 

Excellent stuff...

 

I totally agree, there have been some great races this season, by the same token there have been some disappointing races as well, a lot of which could be laid at the feet of the drivers who (bar kobayashi), seemed reluctant to give overtaking a go.

Yes there are a lot of "old" tracks where the racing is boring and some of the "miracle cure" modifications made to some of them don't seem to have had as great an effect as the designers desired (I may be on My own, but I miss the old bus stop chicane at SPA for a start).

Please show Me where I blame Tilke for everything that's wrong with F1.

I agree that the design of the cars is a major problem with modern day racing and I have stated in previous posts that the first thing I would ban are the rear diffusers, all the fiddly little aero add-on pieces and give the cars tyres with more grip so they can physically follow each other via mechanical grip rather than relying on aero grip which is far too easy to disrupt.

It seems the point I was trying to make has been missed somehow so I'll use an old analogy to explain the point more clearly:

the proof is in the pudding!.

 

You're not alone on that one. I agree with you there and don't see the point of the new chicane.

When you "drive" these tracks in F1 2010 game, you realize how friggen artificial and cumbersome the chicanes in general are. I used to love the Barcelona track, but they cut the life out of it with that stupid chicane before the last turn. Totally destroys the flow. Similar comment can be made for the chicane after s/f at Monza.

I rather take a boring/non passing mid speed Tilke turn than a chicane, which brings racing to a grinding halt.

The comment was to a wider audience than you: Most folks on here love to bash Tilke and blame him for everything. I'm no Tilke fan and think what he did in China and Bahrain is absolutely horrible. But I also think he is learning from past mistakes and particularly a track like Turkey is as good as any of the old great ones everybody loves (while everybody conveniently forgets that the old ones are goners too, emasculated by bloody chicanes).

Is that enough figgy pudding for you?

 

I was originally going to mention that last section at Barcelona and agree that it does ruin the flow. I held off that one though because, to a degree, it does do what was intended of it, in that it allows the cars to remain closer to the one ahead increasing the opportunity of an overtake at the end of the start/finish straight.


With the previous layout, due to the reliance on aero grip, the car behind lost out due to understeer and more often than not only just caught up again at the end of the straight.
(Have to say though, even though it does work, I still don't like the new layout!).

You already know My views on Monza: Ditch all the chicanes and bring back the full circuit with the banking!.

The problem is sadly, due to the way the cars have been developed, at some circuits the chicanes are the only viable possibility of any overtaking opportunities at all.

To be totally honest, I did think this comment may have been a generalization for the majority on here rather than aimed at Myself and I will confess that there was an element of Devils advocate on My part in My response, for which I apologize!.

For Me, some of Tilkes work I like: Sepang and Turkey for instance, and others are very disappointing: As you say, Bahrain springs to mind straight away and I can't seem to take a liking to Valencia for some reason.

Please!, I've eaten so much pudding over Christmas that I'm beginning to look like a Christmas pudding!.

 

As a spectator, I hated Valencia because it is all flat and surrounded by catch fences. All you see is like 100 meters of straight in front of your grandstand. Unlike Monaco where you catch the cars at various parts of the track.

But Tilke is mostly innocent when it comes to Valencia since he had to work with the given harbor. In fact that bridge they built is actually pretty cool. And when you "drive" the track in the game it has actually a surprisingly good flow to it.

The bone headed move about Valencia is, that they put it in the harbor when they already had a ready made road track outside of town. Duh!

 

Yes, to be fair, he was limited on layout due to the area he was given and it may the case that I'm subconsciously judging it unfairly based on the view from the drivers seat (wall after wall of concrete and fences. I have the same problem with Singapore, it might be a great circuit to drive layout wise, but I don't like it because it looks like they're racing round a deserted car park/building site for much of the track!).

As for not using the existing Valencia circuit, I think someone had dreams of having a Spanish "Monaco" GP, not realizing that there can only ever be one Monaco GP.

The thing is, if there needs to be a circuit sacrificed in Spain for a GP in another country, Valencia is in a lot more danger than Barcelona as I see it.

Back on topic, I think the India circuit looks interesting and I sincerely hope that it makes for great racing, I guess I'm just being the usual pessimistic Brit always looking at the down side of things. Time will tell!.

 

Singapore is drivingwise probably the worst track on the calendar (even worse than Bahrain). Try it in a game and you'll get lost faster than you can imagine. Even after playing it for over an hour I still couldn't memorize it: Too many 90 degree concrete wall turns with no distinguishing features whatsoever.

In an article I wrote I called Valencia "the poor man's Monaco". That pretty much sums it up. Whoever had that wet dream didn't consider that racing around containers in a flat harbor isn't quite the same as climbing the hill to Monte Carlo's Casino.

I think the layout of the Indian track is even a tad better than the one for Austin as it has less of the gimmicky turns. Mostly straights and elevation changes. Looking promising so far.

 

I'm just glad I don't have to race there for real!. I can only suspect it's the risk of smashing into concrete and seriously hurting yourself that keeps the drivers awake!, it's just dreadful!.

Exactly!, Monaco is interesting because it's just fabulous to watch, be it actually at the circuit or on TV.
The whole event is like a real life fantasy with so much to see that most of us could only dream about. It's the beautiful people, in a beautiful setting and it has the glamour and the history to back it all up with.
Valencia by comparison is a poor facsimile, like a Toyota MR2 made to look like a Ferrari, at the end of the day, it's not even close to the real thing.

That's an interesting note because so far I have been impressed with the design of the Austin circuit, it looks like it has some real good potential (I must like gimmicks because the Austin circuit impressed Me more than the India circuit, but again, until the cars actually run all together, I'll reserve My judgment).

 

Bear in mind that a prime concern in track design these days has nothing to do with the cars or the spectators but how it looks on TV.

 

Mmmm..... looking at the Abu Dhabi circuit, I'd have a hard time arguing against that statement!.

 

Not joking. The money's in the TV end of things.

 

Bernie Ecclestones the give away on that one!

 

Despite popular opinion Bernie did not actually invent avarice. He just perfected it

 

And then got the world wide patent to sell it to the world under license!