Singapore race organisers today announced their intention to modify their circuit for the 2009 race. The circuit, which hosted the first ever Formula One night race last year, will undergo revisions and modifications designed to improve the spectacle as well as increasing safety at some points on the track.
Speaking to autosport.com, track boss and event chairman Colin Syn announced that the priorities were to improve overtaking and to review the surface, the bumpy nature of which caused some set-up issues for drivers in 2008.
He said: “We are modifying turns one, two and three because we want drivers to have more opportunities to overtake this year.”
“We want to reduce the bumps and smoothen out the circuit,” he added. “So that will be an improvement next year to make the race even better than it was in 2008.”
Singapore was widely hailed as one of the success stories of the year, not only for the visual spectacle but also for the quality of the racing which it produced. The 2008 event was incident-packed, and eventually was won by Fernando Alonso.
The news of the modifications to the circuit will re-open the debate over whether circuit design affects the quality of the racing. Many fans maintain that Spa, for example, consistently produces entertaining and exciting races, whereas some circuits consistently have the opposite effect.
