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It will look a lot different once those extra barriers in the road and other things are out of the way. My main concern for the races is how acute Turn 1 will actually be.
I suppose, in the future, using the rest of the loop of the Shortland Esplanade would clear things up somewhat for those in the area, but I'm not sure if the FIA would approve it.
It's a rock and a hard place. You want to go to interesting places and venues, especially for the season finale. Newer permanent road courses, like Tailem Bend, just don't grab people like the classic tracks. And the trouble is, how do you build a track like the classics now?
As for street circuits, Newcastle looks very good. You don't have the lackluster surroundings of a Valencia F1 circuit, or the strict grid pattern of F1 in downtown Detroit.
The course itself looks good, with three realistic overtaking points on a 1.65-mile lap. Also, I'd just about expect an LMP1 at least to be able to average 100 mph around the circuit.
For street circuits of roughly this length (1.6-1.7 miles), Newcastle seems about as good as it gets. The only one I think I would definitively place higher is the 1993-97 layout of the Vancouver street circuit that CART used.
In any case, I'm glad they listened to, and acted on, the driver recommendations they got for how to improve the course after the original proposal.
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