motorsportmania

What is this obsession with city street races? They may have worked well enough into the 1970s, but ground effect and the development of aerodynamics really killed the relevance. Sure Monaco has survived and thrived, but Monaco is Monaco and somehow it still works.

In the newer world countries, where there is more space and you can have some reasonable overtaking opportunities, you encounter the problem of too many corners ending up as right angles added to which there is the stupidity of installing chicanes to make the wide streets narrow or to slow the cars. Most of the overseas city street circuits suffer from these issues.

The idea of a street race in New Jersey is to me nonsense as well. Whilst I wish the new Texas circuit well, it is a race track after all, why build a new circuit when the one at Indy is fine. And then there are great road circuits at Road America, Road Atlanta and, let it never be forgotten, Watkins Glen; why are we not having the USGP at one of these? To be back at The Glen in the fall would be fantastic for the F1 calendar.

In days gone by motor racing was a lot more dangerous for the participants, and a healthy respect for the dangers meant that races such Pau and Macau, both of which continue in lower formulae, and other similar town or city races worked well, but you only have to look at the idiocy that occurs every year now at Macau to see how driver safety has increased driver stupidity and raised the incidence of safety cars and red flags. I love Monaco, but there is rarely any overtaking at the front so why proliferate these daft ideas?

There are plenty of good circuits around where racing cars, including F1, can race as they should do. Yes there may be a need to bring some of them up to a higher standard, but surely there is less cost in that than in converting a city street layout to racing standards? And what about facilities? We have heard all sorts of nonsense about circuits such as Silverstone not meeting F1’s requirements, so how on earth could a circuit in the centre of London meet them? Such stuff is sheer hypocrisy.

If there is the enthusiasm to have a second race in the UK then let’s have it on a proper circuit. Oulton Park would be a challenge, as would the much revised Snetterton. Brands Hatch could make a comeback, Donnington is there and waiting and even Thruxton, with barely a straight piece of track anywhere could be fun. Any of these would be better that some of the slot racing circuits that Bernie has foisted on us in wealthy parts of the globe.

But if there is a desire to waste cash on a London circuit, and make a date available, why not instead consider putting the funds together to get the French GP back on to the calendar? It is the home of Grand Prix racing after all and no true enthusiast should accept an F1 season without a French GP.

So let’s get rid of the plastic tracks in Turkey, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Singapore and China for a start. If Bernie wants to order the Aussies about let him talk to them about moving their race to a proper track, they’re not short of them, and we’ll have the USGP back at Indy or The Glen, add in the French GP (at Paul Ricard maybe?) and we’d have a decent season.

Well, I can dream….

Filed under: Circuits, F1 | Tagged: brands hatch, F1, formula one, FrenchGP, LondonGP, silverstone, snetterton, WGI |