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[Jademalo]

This has been bugging the life out of me, since I just can't figure out where it was.
Earlier in the season - and Martin Brundle made a spesific comment about it - there was a track where a certain corner was changed so all of the runoff was tarmac. It was a downhill slope just after a right hander. The problem is, I can't remember which circuit this was on.

I THINK it might be the hungaroring, but I can't find any videos of a lap of it this season.

Can anyone tell me which track it was?
Thanks!

[scotty]

Sure it wasn't the exit of turn 3 at Barcelona? Lots of drivers were really abusing the new tarmac runoff to gain time, i remember they mentioned that.

[LewEngBridewell]

What do we all think of tarmac run-off areas instead of gravel?

I'm not so sure myself. Mistakes are just not punished, and drivers can afford not to be as precise as they once were. Sticking a wheel offline once meant a sliding off into the gravel, but now the driver can carry on as if nothing happened.

[darwin dali]

What do we all think of tarmac run-off areas instead of gravel?

I'm not so sure myself. Mistakes are just not punished, and drivers can afford not to be as precise as they once were. Sticking a wheel offline once meant a sliding off into the gravel, but now the driver can carry on as if nothing happened.

I'm all for replacing those tarmacs with sand banks. And while we're at it, replace those ugly armco with barb wire or somtin'!

[andrew]

They should just replace the run off areas with bottomless pits. That'll teach 'em!

[myownalias]

To answer the OP's question, I thought it was Pouhon at Spa Francorchamps that had been tarmacked over this season, I remember Brundle mentioning something about that!

On the subject of tarmac run off areas, I dislike them hugely, F1 is supposed to be the best cars and the best drivers, if they can't keep all four wheels within the confines of the track, then they deserve to be punished, we've seen drivers using these run off areas to gain an advantage and no punishment seems to be forthcoming!

[Jademalo]

It's unbelievably hard to find videos of the races this year, so I'm struggling to test.
I do remember trees, so it may well be spa, however, I have been playing f1 2011' andI must've put 5x the amount of time into that circuit than in the rest of the game and didn't notice it. It was actually the absence of it in game that made me try to remember, because i Remember it being weird.

Thanks for the help though guys, if anyone can give a more conclusive answer, please do.

And on the debate of runoffs, yeah, there's far too much lenience. Solid walls never hurt any- err, the cars come off worse?

[darwin dali]

And on the debate of runoffs, yeah, there's far too much lenience. Solid walls never hurt any- err, the cars come off worse?

This chap would disagree:

[Jademalo]

Aaaaaaanyway, I've been having a look on various highlight videos some more, and I still cannot for the life of me find a circuit with that line. It's impossible

[madbrad]

My guess is that Bernie has a delicate balancing act to perform between punishing drivers their errors and keeping more cars in the race for the sake of the spectacle. Much of F1 is theatre.

Senna was airborne for a spell there and so could not reduce speed for some of that, but yes perhaps sand or gravel would have been a help in that case. That does not mean that is the case in every corner in every off track excursion. Tamburello in particular was very tricky to make safe. More runoff area was needed, but there was a creek right on the other side of the wall. There must've been a good reason not to put gravel there. This was after Berger had his terrible incident there. There have been several notable F1 incidents at Tamburello. So he and Senna together had walk over there and a look, then shrugged their shoulders when they surveyed the creek. Later, Berger warned Senna that that corner will someday kill someone. It makes me shiver. That track has had safety concerns ever since it was built, and is one of those tracks, along with Monte Carlo, that would not be built for F1 today.

[Jademalo]

All joking aside, the runoffs are life savers. I'd love to know why they're all going tarmac now.
With regards to Monaco not being built now - it would. If there was adequate space, the layout would be built. A lot of the high speed corners have runoff space, theres just buildings in the way?

Also, I've found my track!
Second to last corner in Italy. There's a massive Tarmac runoff, and the drivers put the right wheel over the white line by quite a margin.

[LewEngBridewell]

Doesn't gravel also help slow down fast moving cars, if they're coming off track at high speed?

Take this accident at Monza in 2000 for example. This corner is now tarmac run off. Back in 2000, we had cars zooming off at high speed and Pedro de la Rosa even barrel-rolled into it. Would the "settling-down" of the accident have differed now? I mean, there's now nothing that would've slowed the accident down!

[youtube]Aa3swqSvPJM[/youtube]

[andrew]

In theory tarmac run off areas are better than gravel. There is the chance for the driver to correct their mistake or to still be able to use the brakes and stop the car without hitting anything or at least reduce their speed before impact. Plus the chance of a car being pitched into a roll is greatly reduced with tarmac.

Lew - the thing about the gravel area in your example is, as with a lot of gravel traps, is that they are too flat and the cars just run over the top of the gravel and there is no real slowing effect. Gravel traps of old were like a ploughed field but the furrows could pitch the car into a roll.

[Bubbie]

The quote was indeed from the Spa telecast.

I took think that they should be gravel traps (the kind that stop the car, not the kinder gentler ones that they can drive through), not tarmac runoff. This is for a safety perspective and also to ensure that the drivers have to use their balls to really push in a corner.

[Hammer278]

This has been bugging the life out of me, since I just can't figure out where it was.
Earlier in the season - and Martin Brundle made a spesific comment about it - there was a track where a certain corner was changed so all of the runoff was tarmac. It was a downhill slope just after a right hander. The problem is, I can't remember which circuit this was on.

I THINK it might be the hungaroring, but I can't find any videos of a lap of it this season.

Can anyone tell me which track it was?
Thanks!

Sounds very much like Spa. At Turn 1, there is a huge tarmac area where people take advantage (Kimi) by running offline purposely and gaining an advantage by increasing the turning radius so he could put the power own earlier. But there's no downhill slope at this area.

OR the corner at Pouhon...the long left hander. The entire gravel area is now tarmac. But this is after a left hander, not right.

If you're talking Hungary, I'm thinking of Turn 5...the long right hander where there is tarmac on the left now...and isn't a dangerous corner anymore.

To be honest, there's many tracks which have been severely 'tamed'.