The Circuito Hague dela TrahuertÃ*, built on the grounds of a local car dealership and tuning specialist, has been the home of the OtherWorld(ly) Series Portuguese Grand Prix ever since its redevelopment in the early 1990s. Its length is around 3.9 kilometers.
Track history:
Originally, on the location of the Circuito, there used to be a relatively boring, relatively rectangular test track, used by the local tuning specialist, which also occasionally hosted motorbike and car races in minor categories. When said tuning specialist entered the OtherWorld(ly) Series with the support of a major car manufacturer, the track was redeveloped and reshaped as a Grand Prix track, with construction beginning in around 1993, when I first drew this track.
The chicane that comes before the final corner underwent several reshaping procedures over the years, but the track's final corner is still suffering from what I call the "Magny-Cours problem": the closeness of the pit wall on the exit of the final corner requires cars being slowed down, but I haven't found a chicane shape that I like so far.
If you want to see the track now, click here:
http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g1...g/222f13af.jpg
Lap description:
The Circuito Hague dela TrahuertÃ* runs clockwise. Going down the flat start-finish straight, you need to prepare yourself well, if you are going to try an overtaking move in Turn 1 (1st gear), because Turn 1 is the tightest corner of the whole track. It's a 180 degree hairpin that's been kinked even more to the right, close to its tip, to make the corner even tighter. The ideal line would be to enter the corner far on the outside at its entry and then reach the apex at 2/3 into it, exiting on the kerb behind the kink on the outside. In taking that line, the kink is in fact not felt at all. But actually taking that line means leaving the door open very wide for a competitor from behind to enter, only to suddenly close the door at the last second, whilst the competitor has already gone through and finds himself struggling to get past the kink on the exit without going off into the gravel. After that corner, the track leads along a short straight, where it begins to moderately go downhill. That decline in altitude continues while cars accelerate through the slightly cambered left-hander Turn 2 (4th gear, 5th gear for some), which has increasing radius throughout. After that, the lowpoint of this particular section is reached, when Turn 2 fades out into that long uphill left-hand bow, that's cambered in the same way as Turn 2. Cars still accelerate, going along the bow, with altitude getting steeper the closer they get to the next corner, even getting into 7th gear for a moment, before the braking zone for the right-hander Turn 3 begins, just when the kink at the end of the bow at its steepest point. Braking into Turn 3 is possibly the most difficult overtaking opportunity on the track. Turn 3 (2nd gear) is a right-hander that goes around 120 degrees. At its entry, the track hangs steeply upward, reaching the highpoint of the circuit at its apex, and going moderately downhill on from its exit. Right next comes Turn 4 (2nd gear too), a right-hander that's tighter on its exit than at its entry and which goes downill relatively steeply from its entry towards its apex, where it's tightest. Next is the left-hander Turn 5 (3rd gear accelerating), during the course of which the altitude decrease fades into only moderately going downhill, in the way the track decreases on the subsequent short straight bit between Turns 3 and 4. At the end of the straight, there is Turn 6, the 1st part of an S-curve that later becomes the long-winded parabolica. (It's already as early as entering into Turn 6, when a driver must pick one of multiple possible lines to go through the subsequent section, that will enable him to overtake out of the slipstream at the end of the straight that follows the parabolica.) Turn 6 (3rd gear at its tightest, but 4th gear for some) begins rather wide on its entry, then has its tightest radius around the point where the new track crosses the old, and then widens again, before turning right into Turn 7. On the entry of Turn 6, the track altitude still decreases in the same way as it does on the straight that preceded the corner, reaching the relative lowpoint at about where the new track crosses the old. On from there, it climbs steeply, but not as steep as on the entry of Turn 3, so you are actually on a higher altitude on the exit of Turn 6 than you were when entering the corner. The 2nd part of the S-curve, Turn 7, continues to climb uphill, being its steepest where the right-hander Turn 7 is still tightening, and getting more moderate after the first apex, where it widens again. Turn 7 (3rd gear at its tightest), the parabolica, reaches its highest altitude at its northernmost point, just before it tightens again, going moderately downhill from there. Cars accelerate all the way through that part of the parabolica, which fades into the back straight, thereby going through several changes in radius.
The lowest overall point of the circuit is reached at the end of the back straight, where cars also reach their highest speed, just before the major overtaking opportunity of the track, the 1st part of the Z-curve, the tight right-hander Turn 8 (2nd gear). Beginning at the apex of Turn 8, the track goes only slightly uphill through the 2nd part of the Z-curve, the left-hander Turn 9 (2nd gear too), and steepens to moderately going uphill after that corner, continuing to rise like that until the apex of the final corner. Next is a wide kink to the left, Turn 10, through which cars accelerate, which is followed by the place where the so-called Magny-Cours chicane used to be, replaced by a tight right-left chicane (2nd gear) that's still being heavily debated. It consists of Turn 11 and 12 (both down to 2nd gear again), and it merely exists to avoid cars being too fast on the exit of the final corner that's next, Turn 13 (3rd gear accelerating), so they won't hit the pit wall in oversteer.
On from the apex of Turn 13, the track is flat again on the start-finish straight. Of course, a clean run through the Magny-Cours section is important for taking as much speed as possible onto the straight. That was a lap of the Circuito Hague dela TrahuertÃ*, a track you normally wouldn't expect to find in the backyard of your local car dealership.