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All of these philosophies never work, on any track ever. "If we put this corner here, they'll bunch up and it'll create passing!" It really doesn't work. The best tracks for racing, like Montreal, work because the tracks are a bit rough and mistakes, even tiny ones, are punished. Just a wee bit wide? You'll clip the grass, lose awee bit of time, and someone will get a run on you. If you do the same at Korea, you use extra free tarmac and nobody loses anything.

The best corners in all of these new tracks is that slightly mad chicane at India that Massa kills cars on, and the fast esses at Austin, because mistakes are punished.

The final two corners at Abu Dhabi are bland and unimaginative. They are as formulaic and boring as the rest of the circuit.

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BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
Formula Fun Cup Champion 2013
http://www.the-fastlane.co.uk

The chicane complex at the end of the second long straight at Abu Dhabi has seen some pretty good overtakes across the years. Kubica in 2010 and one involving Webber one year come to mind.

I agree with the last, don't you mean the beginning of the circuit Tobias? The combination after the first corner is quite alright, the rest is downright boring.

First sector is great in Abu Dhabi, 2nd well ok, but 3rd is crap - like go kart chicanes

Turns 2 and 3 are ok, but that is purely down to the elevation change. Other than that Abu Dhabi has nothing of value or interest. The final two turns are merely an almost identical repeat of turns 16 and 17. The circuit is made up purely of chicanes, 45 degree and 90 degree turns. That's hardly interesting and exciting. A few minor changes and the circuit could be transformed.

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BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
Formula Fun Cup Champion 2013
http://www.the-fastlane.co.uk

for some reason, I like races there. Probably thanks to the sunset.

Also, I guess it's OK for them to have a race there, although Dubai would maybe be better suited for a race in the UAE.

As Kimi Raikkonen described the AUHcircuit:



Maybe they should drive that section in the top of the picture but go straight to the hairpin?

I actually like the lefthander of that chicane, you can really attack that corner in videogames.

I think that chicane is way too slow to be before a big straight as it makes it impossible to properly follow a car onto the straight. The car ahead can get on the power so much earlier there's no chance for the car following. Thus why we see most of the overtakes on the second straight. I do think it would be a big gain for Abu Dhabi if they just cut through it and went straight to the hairpin, it would probably be another passing spot as well.

I think that was the original plan but they wanted the grandstand to be really close to the circuit and therefore had to put in a chicane

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Dan Wheldon | 1978 - 2011

maybe the chicane in the middle of the straights could be turned into a kink or a corner like 130R, obviously with a 2m wide strip of gravel alongside the limit of the kerbs

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Motorsports trend for 2024: everything is a bad taste joke now

I proposed this before last season's Keystone Cops race



Basically what is currently the penultimate corner would be a sweeping right hander, going downhill into a tunnel. Reverses some of the circuit, becomes a figure of eight. But considering the money they have, they could really do anything. Shame most of it was spent on the Phallic hotel rather than a track designer.

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Dan Wheldon | 1978 - 2011

You do that and the net result will be cars running on the limiter for 2/3rds of the entire length of the straight, and no real benefit in slipstreaming or overtaking.

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BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
Formula Fun Cup Champion 2013
http://www.the-fastlane.co.uk

which means that fast bends like that could only fit to 70's cars

but I guess they fitted that chicane there because FIA wouldn't homologate a track with a 3km straight and Abu Dhabi wasn't conceived properly so we're hopeless on getting things right

and they use that sunset feature to reduce layout criticism by broadcasters and commentators

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Motorsports trend for 2024: everything is a bad taste joke now

Bingo LW, the chicane is there to be a designated overtaking spot and because of the maximum straight length requirement of the FIA, etc...

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BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
Formula Fun Cup Champion 2013
http://www.the-fastlane.co.uk

but FIA doesn't apply kinks as corners, or they just take as part of a straight and see it as even dangerous spot?

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Motorsports trend for 2024: everything is a bad taste joke now

FIA considers kinks as "half corners", so when a kink follows turn 2 for example the kink is called "turn 2A"...

and so still a "straightway"?

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Motorsports trend for 2024: everything is a bad taste joke now

New Rush trailer
[youtubeidiot]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgJuzcZY-zU[/youtubeidiot]

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Dan Wheldon | 1978 - 2011

Talking of shitty chicanes, the three part chicane at Singapore has to be the shittiest for everything except random airbornes in friday practice.

Couldn't be any shittier, most of the time in the F1 games I end up trying to jump through it flat out too.

Surfers Paradise has a similar crap 3 part chicane on the backstraight. Couldn't do a better job of ensuring the cars, which might have got a side by side run out of the preceding corner, had to back off and file through one at a time.
It was basically a "stop racing or have a massive accident" chicane. (and if Paul Tracy was around, it was massive accident time)

Really can't understand the logic of these 3 part chicanes at all. Abu Dhabi has one too but then that track seems to deliberately do some of the worst things possible in track design so that's not a surprise.

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RIP Birmingham Wheels: here's some of the crash videos I recorded when it was there:

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