Progressive Camber?

[entropy]

Should we see more cambered corners? How about progressive camber?

It's been successful on ovals in America. One example being New Hampshire which used to be flat and boring, but with a low lane being only slightly lower banking than the rest of the upper lanes the racing has much improved.

I wonder if it could work in circuit racing? Or is it just a gimmick?

Martin Brundle was an advocate of progressive camber for the Club corner at Silverstone.

I seem to remember James Hunt having a bit of a pop at Mario Andretti when the he latter passed the former at the heavily banked Tarzan corner at Zandvoort.

Tilke obviously has some influence from Hugenholtz with the long straights and hairpins but hardly any camber.

[Life Saab Itch]

entropy said:

Should we see more cambered corners? How about progressive camber?

It's been successful on ovals in America. One example being New Hampshire which used to be flat and boring, but with a low lane being only slightly lower banking than the rest of the upper lanes the racing has much improved.

I wonder if it could work in circuit racing? Or is it just a gimmick?

Martin Brundle was an advocate of progressive camber for the Club corner at Silverstone.

I seem to remember James Hunt having a bit of a pop at Mario Andretti when the he latter passed the former at the heavily banked Tarzan corner at Zandvoort.

Tilke obviously has some influence from Hugenholtz with the long straights and hairpins but hardly any camber.

I would argue that Tilke has had fk all influence from John Hugenholtz. Hugenholtz designed brilliant tracks, yet had bad ideas about safety (catch fencing). Tilke has great ideas about safety (car park sized run off areas) but designs st tracks. Polar opposites, one might say.

The reason that Tilke puts a straight into a hairpin, is that when he is playing with his geometry set and has just planned another constant radius corner leading onto a straight, he realises that he has to put in a 1km straight somewhere. If he slings it in there, he has to put in a hairpin at the end to bring the drivers back towards civilisation.

That or it follows the shape of a certain chinese symbol that Bernie has tattooed on his shoulder.

[Nick M]

Life Saab Itch said:

entropy said:

Tilke obviously has some influence from Hugenholtz with the long straights and hairpins but hardly any camber.

I would argue that Tilke has had fk all influence from John Hugenholtz. Hugenholtz designed brilliant tracks, yet had bad ideas about safety (catch fencing). Tilke has great ideas about safety (car park sized run off areas) but designs st tracks. Polar opposites, one might say.

The thing which bugs me most about Tilke is that, when it's apparent for everyone else to see that his tracks don't promote good racing and overtaking, he doggedly sticks to the same design approach with track, after track, after track.

It seems that when a passing place is created it is more by luck than judgement, or 'exciting' racing a product of the weather conditions.

I know the cars are at least partly at fault, and I'm not holding my breath about the new regs for this season having any significant impact on the racing. Yet we're already hearing noises from the motorsport media about how the rule changes will open up the racing and how it could be the most exciting season yet.

All it suggests to me is that F1 has become a triumph of over-hyped optimism over facts and common sense....

[Jacobyte]

It's odd that Tilke creates boring circuits, particularly as he is a true motorsport nut and races regularly on the Nordschleife in the VLN series. So it's not as if he doesn't know what he's doing.

Perhaps his hands are too tied by committees (e.g. safety and TV angles) for him to be properly creative?

In answer to progressive camber - not on all corners, but certianly some. Otherwise it would be like a scalextric track with nobody moving off their line, making the two red cars at the front unpassable as they cruise round side-by-side for 60 laps.