Originally Posted by Purist
Honestly, it's just the Mercedes that are really THAT bad at following other cars; this track is too much like a point-and-squirt street circuit, and so, it really favors the more powerful and/or less draggy cars.
Watching the pre-race lap comparison, Ricciardo's Red Bull can do the business in Turns 1-3, but the power of the Merc has Hamilton ahead by the approach to Turn 5. And although they talk about Sector 3 being good for the Red Bull, Turns 15-16 are flat-out, so the only high-speed corner in that section that's actually a real corner is Turn 20.
And I suppose Tilke would then need to go into an Austrian prison for what he did to the Osterreichring, and the same with the Japanese and Mexicans for what he did to Fuji and Hermanos Rodriguez.
Anyway, I'd also like to see Istanbul back, and wish Sepang wasn't disappearing for 2018. The one Tilke circuit they haven't visited that I'd be interested to see them have a go at is Buriram; I think the racing there could actually be pretty decent, and it's not just another 20 corners in 3.4 miles circuit.
Singapore came out pretty well, at least, though they should have left the circuit going across the right side of the Anderson Bridge. Baku is also quite good for the racing. Sochi is an odd one; I think a few minor tweaks could certainly help, and I do like the front stretch, Turn 3, and the back stretch. But yeah, parts of it are just too disjointed and point-and-squirt.
I know China's going to have a race one way or another; I just wish a better option existed besides Shanghai. Zhuhai isn't bad, but there's not much in my mind to particularly recommend it either. Ningbo might be decent, but is likely considered too short for F1. And Ordos is too short and too fiddly. Part of me would like to see F1 cas try to make it around Macau, well the hairpin anyway.
So yes, I'd like to see the back side of Yas Marina, Austin, Shanghai, and Bahrain, though the last one doesn't seem quite as bad to me now; I wonder though if Dubai would produce better racing, and I'm curious to see what Kuwait will look like when finished.
I'd love to see F1 have a go at Algarve, and really, I'm not terribly keen on any of the Spanish circuits, given the layouts they'd likely use for F1. I'd find Jerez quite nice, if not for the chicane. Catalunya would be alright also, if not for those two changes in the latter portion of the lap that came in about a decade ago. Heck, I think Aragon could be interesting, especially if they omitted that chicane and let them have the full 1,700+ meters of back stretch to work with.
It's a bit like Germany though, where the better-known options don't seem so great, and so the Sachsenring is looking more appealing, and in Spain, I'm looking more closely at Jarama.
If there's an opening for the track designer slot, I'd gladly throw my hat into the ring.
|