The Glass Road

DUNLOP Corner Le mans Sarthe, julien.reboulet, 2011

It's been years since I watched Formula One. I stumbled across it at the age of nine one Sunday morning and saw Martin Brundle do a barrel-roll at the start of the 1996 Australian Grand Prix. From then on I tuned in every race weekend supporting Damon Hill's championship run against the evil Darth Vader Michael Schumacher, even getting up at 5am for final race in Japan. I stayed with the sport through to about 2002 when my interest waned concurrent with Schumacher's domination. Contrast that with my favourite season of 1999 when Schumacher was absent with injury for several months and it looked like (almost) anyone could win - even the scrappy underdogs, Jordan. I was rooting for Heinz-Harald Frentzen that year. The era was also the last days of the privateer teams before they were all seemingly bought up by factory teams, or at least their grid spots were to avoid the costly registration process with the FIA (hence, Tyrrell became BAR became Honda became Brawn GP became Mercedes GP within the space of twelve years). Of the private teams, only McLaren and Williams have survived largely because Mercedes and BMW, respectively, turned them into semi-factory teams in the recent past. Interestingly, 1999 was also the year of the first Malaysian Grand Prix at the Sepang International Circuit designed by one Herman Tilke.

Anyone actively following F1 will know that name and know where this is headed. As someone who stopped paying attention eleven years ago, aside from dropping in and out of last year's Monaco GP on the iPlayer, I understand I'm quite late to the two minute hate. I can't speak from a position of authority regarding circuit design as, aside from playing games, my motor-racing experience is limited to half a dozen karting sessions. However, when I did play the old F1 games I had a few favourite tracks. I don't think it's a coincidence that Monte Carlo, Hockenheim, Monza, and Spa-Francorchamps are all old circuits. That they are still on the championship calendar is testament to their popularity, though some are more intact than others. Monte Carlo is only tolerated for the traditional glamour it brings in an age that would readily see it scrapped for health and safety reasons just as much for the paucity of overtaking it yields - and I hate to see how neutered the first corner is these days. The latter three are all high-speed circuits that emerged from races held on stretches of public road, just like Le Mans. All three have felt the hand of Tilke and the FIA. Monza's opening double chicane was replaced, which I can live with; Spa's final iconic bus-stop chicane was replaced, which annoys me; but Hockenheim was brutally sliced in half and that was it for me. I had believed it was just run on a shorter layout, but it turns out the old blasts through the forest were torn up and re-seeded. That is the closest one can get to a crime against motorsport heritage. At least the Nürburgring Nordschleife remained intact by sacrificing the smaller Sudschleife.

If you take a look at the F1 calendar these days it's increasingly held outside the old European heartland of the sport. The heritage is lacking. The circuits of old evolved on the open road with the appearance of the automobile - part of what makes them special is not simply the corners; but the combination of corners, bumps, and topography. The new venues in the Middle East and Asia rightly come in for criticism because they completely lack any context. They're placed in the barren desert or on top of a drained swamp and exist solely to put those nations on the map (or F1 calendar) and they exist in these places devoid of history because the sport chases the money to places that don't even have anywhere to hold a race. If an existing circuit cannot or will not accede to the governing body's demands (or simply won't fork more over to Bernie) they can be quickly replaced by a new zero elevation change 'Tilkedrome' in a newly developed country. But as the go-kart courses designed by Herr Tilke haven't gone down too well (with the exception of Turkey which, naturally, disappeared from the event schedule in 2011) it seems there's a slap-dash effort to re-capture some of the historical and cultural significance by creating more street circuits in the vein of Monaco. It's blatantly obvious that the move to create a Grand Prix in New Jersey is under way simply to get the Manhattan skyline in the background of television screens around the world.

I'm certainly not a professional track designer, but I have been messing around with Gran Turismo 5's Course Maker since November. It's really a process of trial and error, but if you spend long enough you can find a good layout - though you can never get it the way you truly want. Here's my four specks of gold:

Targa Toscana
3.63 miles, created 26/11/12, Fastest Lap: 1:21.487 (Mazda 787B)
Similar layout to chicane-less Old Hockenheim, but with the rolling profile of Le Mans' Hunaudières straight. 200mph approach to the hairpin. The final sector right-left is an uphill late-braking point with a blind crest which tends to throw the back out if you jump on the throttle too early. I couldn't think of a name when saving it, so I paid tribute to the insane Targa Florio.

Nierenbohnering (Eifel)
3.96 miles, created 27/11/12, Fastest Lap: 1:03.462 (Mazda 787B)
Evolved from previous attempt named Zweiburgenring which followed the same oval pattern but with a narrow technical section in place of the left hand turn. The AI cuts the pit lane markings into turn one, but it can be avoided and still taken flat out by taking a wide line. The blind crest three quarters in can be taken flat out in a non-F1 car only if on the exact right line. It's best to let off the throttle while cresting or the car will be thrown (as happens with the AI) into the barriers on the left on the other side. NASCAR seems quite suited here as slipstreaming is the only way to overtake. This track is all about top speed - the Ferrari F1 2010 set a true fastest lap of 1:02.786. The name is (probably atrocious) German for 'Kidney Bean Circuit'.

La Posta Carrera (Toscana)
3.17 miles, created 17/12/12, Fastest Lap: 1:19.475 (Mazda 787B)
Named after the date. A move away from high-speed tracks to make something for production cars - as such it was difficult to set a fastest lap record in the 787B without losing control. The final corner (Curva Diabolica) is a blind turn, as most are in the course maker, falling away to the right immediately after the tight braking zone. Half the time I manage to make the entry I slide outward on exit and catch the dust at the track edge which often invalidates the next lap time.

Cinque Miglia di Siena (Toscana)
4.88 miles, created 09/01/13, Fastest Lap: 2:10.341 (Mazda 787B)
My masterpiece co-authored with the GT5 Course Maker algorithm. A long track with lap times comparable to Spa-Francorchamps intended for Group C and Le Mans Prototypes. This track has a fictional backstory much like many old circuits in that it is a semi-closed track partially run on public roads, though the packaged open road theme used by the course maker gives the appearance that it's set in the 60s before the introduction of armco barriers and run-off areas. This is the only one I've deemed important enough to name the corners - of which the game counts 31, though I count 16 major ones ignoring the minor curves and slight bends.

The pit straight runs toward an uphill right hander (Siena) at 200mph and crests onto an undulating wide road (Linea D'Arbia) that runs almost straight down to a left-hand kink that mirrors the approach to Le Man's Indianapolis. Braking from 200+ down to 130mph and briefly back onto the accelerator before slowing to 75mph for the Monteroni hairpin. Another gently curved route (Viuzza) runs westward up to 200+ again until the third sector timing gate which sits atop a small hill where the car compresses in the ascending braking zone. The line stays wide to avoid the dust on the slight leftward approach to the right-hand off-camber Collinetta taken at 90. A short burst ends at the very slow 60mph second gear left-hand rising hairpin (Metà Cavatappi) which tops out into the opening 180° right-hand Piatto and onto the secondary straight Vialetto. At the end of the straight over the crest is the Casale left-hander with three apexes. The track now runs into the technical section down through the fast (120mph) right-left-right Catarina Esses into the slower (80mph) flat left-right-left Incrocio Esses and back up again in the 90mph right-left-right Balzare Esses. In a manual car (and especially if racing with the temperamental clutch) the whole section is taken in third gear. After a kink, the final right turn (Montalbuccio) opens down onto the pit straight.

As this is intended to be a track that could have been part of the old World Sportscar Championship I like to run longer races on it. I did two 100 mile races to get the feel of the track and then later did a proper endurance race of 250km over 32 laps (roughly an hour and fifteen minutes). The former were all done in the 787B and I recently tried the 250km in the Ford Mark IV only to end up third from a combination of poor tyres spinning me out and the presence of the illegal Chaparral 2J. It would be nice if actually running a race on a custom course yielded any money and experience points, and if a suspend/resume race function was available as in GT mode. Can you tell I'm avoiding the Nürburgring 24 Hours? I tried it but crashed out of the lead after 40 minutes because medium tyres don't last long and hard tyres don't grip well. I'm stringing out the novelty of GT5, after dropping all the assists and getting a wheel and pedals, by practising heel-toe downshifting.

Written 17th and 30th of January
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