2012 United States Grand Prix ***SPOILERS***

The track reminds me of India a bit, it will be fascinating to see how it goes. Nice to be back in the USA, it will also be interesting to see crowd numbers.

Although it seems the most boring tracks produce the best races in 2012 so it will be hard to judge no matter what happens!

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X (@ed24f1)

Yeah certainly looking forward to this after Abu Dhabi, Championship looks like its going to go down to the wire.

Hopefully gets a good turn out from the fans.

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Races: 163 - Wins: 23 - Pole Positions: 24 - Fastest Laps: 22
Season 9: Constructors' Champions

Having driven on this track in GP4, it has the long straight which is as long as the BIC in India and will
Provide some wheel 2 wheel racing..

Hope the championship does not end here!

Numbers? Your guess is as good as mine.

Every driver and expert have praised this track, it should be something really to look forward to.

I wouldn't rely on a GP4 impression of the track to tell you how good the circuit will be, but I am looking forward to it, well except for that Mickey Mouse bit towards the end of the lap.

The track is awesome, the best of the Tilkedromes so far. I think it even eclipses the Indian track, or is on par with it.

In an F1 car, it looks like has six low-speed corners, mostly hairpins taken in 1st or 2nd, they are T1, T11, T12, T13, T15 and T20. It has about seven high-speed, but not flat out, corners taken in 4th-6th, they are T2, T3, T4, T5, T6, T16-18 (considered as one arc) and T19. It has about only two medium-speed corners in the face of T7 and T8. T19 can also be considered a medium-to-high speed corner IMO. T9, T10, T14 should be flat out.

The T13-T15 sequence looks particulary interesting, because it should be basically two hairpins - T14 and the two slight kinks before T15 will be ignored, I think. T14 will be taken flat out accelerating from the T13 hairpin, sliding all the way to the left edge of the track, but the two left kinks will help the drivers bring the car back to the right-hand side of the track under braking for T15. It reminds me not of the stadion section of the Hockenheimring, but the Omega turns of Willow Springs in that the ideal line will diverge from the direction of some turns - one will turn right and away from the arc of the circuit centreline.

Interestingly, not only the types of corners suggest a bit of everything, a very balanced track from this point of view, but the placement of them does as well. Most of the high-speed corners will be in S1, between T2 and T8, necessitating the highest possible aerodynamic downforce, whereas from T9 to T20 there are mainly long straights and slow hairpins, except the quick T16-18 and T19 corners. These are S2 and S3. The straights will necessitate low aerodynamic downforce, good top speed and long gears, while the slow hairpins will be neutral to aerodynamic downforce, but will still necessitate short gears and good traction under braking and acceleration.

Clearly, car setup will be one of the biggest compromise of the year. Good top speed with long gears, or short gears. High or low aero downforce. The track should even out the strengths of the cars if the teams opt to emphasise their packages strengths in the setups. Red Bull is obviously the best in high-speed corners with the best aero downforce, McLaren excels in low speed traction both under braking and during acceleration, Ferrari has good top speed and is reasonably quick in high-speed corners. It is impossible to tell, who will come out on top, but the track resembles most to the Indian one, so my bet is on Red Bull once again. The Indian track featured four low-speed corners, hairpins mostly, in the face of T16, T1, T3 and T4. Between them all of the corners were a large sequence of flowing high-speed corners, except probably T6 and T15.

Still, we don't know yet if any of the braking areas will be blind, as the Indian T3 and T15. T10 looks to be blind, but it is flat-out. Also, we don't know much about the cambers. Abu Dhabi is full of unexpected, off-camber corners like T13, T14, T18 and T19, and that's what makes them hard to tackle.

Again, I think COTA is an amazing circuit...

EDIT: Actually scrap part of the description. The actual track, already on Google Maps, is different from the preview map we used here. Although I took into account some of the differences in the post (less tight T3-T4 and kinks between T14 and T15), I neglected one (the significantly tighter T8-T9). Due to the latter, T7, T8 and T9 are actually a lot slower than expected, slightly unbalancing the track characteristic towards the slow speed corners.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/05/2012 09:02PM by Atticus..

And I'd rely on google maps even less than GP4

Metal barrier looks close on some areas, that can't be a bad thing, can it?

please Grosjean if by any chance you read this, take Vettel out!

lol +1

Slash Wrote:
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> Metal barrier looks close on some areas, that
> can't be a bad thing, can it?
>
> please Grosjean if by any chance you read this,
> take Vettel out!

It really seems promising. So far my 3 favourite Tilkedromes are Istanbul, Shanghai and Yeongam, but this one and its Becketts-ish sequence, plus all the up-and-downhills, can perfectly take the prize. I hope more series use the track, so that it gets grippier for next year. I can totally see ALMS or IndyCar here, even NASCAR can replace the boring (IMO) Sonoma.



Stats: 139 Starts / 7 Wins / 9 Poles / 5 Fastest laps

Carlitox Wrote:
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> It really seems promising. So far my 3 favourite
> Tilkedromes are Istanbul, Shanghai and Yeongam,
> but this one and its Becketts-ish sequence, plus
> all the up-and-downhills, can perfectly take the
> prize. I hope more series use the track, so that
> it gets grippier for next year. I can totally see
> ALMS or IndyCar here, even NASCAR can replace the
> boring (IMO) Sonoma.

Yes, more racing would do wonders with grip. I heard somewhere that ALMS actually already plans an outing in Austin for 2013.

On the other hand, I don't agree that Sonoma is boring, although a lot of its charm lost during the years. Since 1996 it lost the green environment during the terraformation, now it's pretty much sandy (excuse the pun), in 1998 it lost the Carousel (for NASCAR, that is), a blind downhill 190-degree U-turn, the uniquely shaped Turn 7 hairpin (now its more edgy, no challenge), then in the 2000s it lost its uniquely and insanely wide S/F straight, then part of the Esses with the back chicane before Turn 10. Thank God, NASCAR still uses the Turn 11 hairpin at the boxes and not the weak excuse that is used by IndyCar.

But the blind, off-camber, uphill, quick T2 and T4 remained, and those are the signature turns of the track. Great challenge both. The character of the track, one on which you are very busy, always turn, also remained the same.

I think it's still a great track.

I'm struggling to get excited at the idea of another Tilke track, but in previews it looks like there are some decent elevation changes, which could give it some character.

Still... F1 IN THE USA!!!!!!! I can't wait to watch this race for that reason alone. Hope F1 can pull off the experience of being entertaining this time and not @#$%& up like it did at Indy.

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Tom Kristensen once asked Tilke why he made all the circuits so damn flat. He had a simple reply: Money.

Just look at what Tilke did with the track in Turkey, also containing proper elevation. If it had a decent number of spectators so it could stay on the calendar, that would surely achieve legendary status. Tilke is no better than the conditions and restrictions that he is given. Finally someone decided to pay for elevations! Once the track is rubbered in, I think it is going to be awesome.

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It's only after we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything.

Tilke all to often gets bad press amongst the fans. Which is totally unfair because they conviently forget that he is working to strict briefs given to him by the track owners and the FIA and has to work from a plain blank canvas. It's easy to forget that many great tracks owed more to the existing natural topography than to design. Many of the Uk's layouts weren't designed at all but were simply a case of "hey look! Abandoned air field! Lets race up and down the run way and perimiter roads".

Given a few less restrictions he'd doubtless produce many more exceptional layouts but as it stands he is an excellent architect and fully deserving of his position of credit within the F1 industry.

I agree that Tilke is constrained by restrictions.

But I don't think that a plain blank canvas is a disadvantage. He may just as well include natural topography in his tracks, if it fits FIA regulations, as well. I still think he is an average designer, not one which deserves to plan F1 tracks - that spot should be reserved not to an average, but to one of the best. On the other hand, I think Tilke is progressing: India and Texas are not nearly as bad as Abu Dhabi for example. In fact, I'm more than pleased with them.

On a sidenote, apart from maybe Snetterton, I think England's best racetrack are not the airfield-based ones. They are not noted for good 'natural topography' either apart from good visibility. The best ones and the ones with excellent natural topography are the rural hillside tracks of Brands Hatch, Oulton Park, Knockhill and Cadwell Park.

Things like the straight at India annoy me. It may not or may not be natural, but there is elevation... and it gets used on a straight. Fair enough if there's a climb (limited traction) or a drop (producing oversteer) just after a corner, but it's in the middle of a bloody straight. What the heck is the point of that?

That and surely he isn't required to have a track of 20+ metres wide. Spa must be one of the narrowest track widths around (the Tilke-if-not-designed-then-inspired start and finish straight excepted), and no one complains that you can't overtake there or that it doesn't produce interesting races - it invariably does, regardless of the weather.

Sorry, but he's ruining Formula 1 one year at a time. The best new track in the past decade in F1 is the only one not designed by Hermann Tilke. That can't be a coincidence.

The best Tilke-influenced track so far, IMO, is the A1-Ring. That had some epic corners, and sure enough, it produced some great races. I'm really hoping Red Bull twist Bernie's arm and get it put back on the calendar.

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and STILL no real "GP4-Version" available 4download? though I seen a very pre-mature one on another forum....

& decent links?
thanks

gav Wrote:
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> Things like the straight at India annoy me. It may
> not or may not be natural, but there is
> elevation... and it gets used on a straight. Fair
> enough if there's a climb (limited traction) or a
> drop (producing oversteer) just after a corner,
> but it's in the middle of a bloody straight. What
> the heck is the point of that?
>
> That and surely he isn't required to have a track
> of 20+ metres wide. Spa must be one of the
> narrowest track widths around (the
> Tilke-if-not-designed-then-inspired start and
> finish straight excepted), and no one complains
> that you can't overtake there or that it doesn't
> produce interesting races - it invariably does,
> regardless of the weather.
>
> Sorry, but he's ruining Formula 1 one year at a
> time. The best new track in the past decade in F1
> is the only one not designed by Hermann Tilke.
> That can't be a coincidence.

I agree. At least in India there are reasonable elevation changes approaching corners as well, such as the uphill rise to T3, the slight incline to T10 and T15 making practically all of them blind. As yes, it is always the right sequence of turns that counts, judging by the work Populous did on Silverstone. The new Spa (the 1979 layout) was also made with this in mind, I'm sure.

EC83 Wrote:
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> The best Tilke-influenced track so far, IMO, is
> the A1-Ring. That had some epic corners, and sure
> enough, it produced some great races. I'm really
> hoping Red Bull twist Bernie's arm and get it put
> back on the calendar.

Yes, it is quite good. I really like the uphill T1 and the reasonably quick corners. I think the A1-Ring, or now Red Bull Ring, is underestimated because being as good as it is, it is still only a shadow of the old Österreichring, and practically there is no chance that would change.

pippo46 Wrote:
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> and STILL no real "GP4-Version" available
> 4download? though I seen a very pre-mature one on
> another forum....
>
> & decent links?
> thanks

I assume you meant the COTA. No, no real version yet. There is one beta released by KTC as I recall, but the layout of that one is slightly inaccurate - not because of KTC, he did a fine job, but because there are slight, but important differences between the original plans, such as that one showed in this topic, and the actual layout that was built.