Turn ten revised at Mexico City?
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Red Bull put out a video of the work underway at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez to prepare it for this year’s Mexican Grand Prix. From it, it seems one of the corners has been altered since the original plans for the remodelling of the circuit were drawn up.
It’s hard to be certain because of the angle, but the turn ten right-hander in this image for the video looks sharper in this still from the video:
Than the more rounded corner visible in this image from Tilke:
Originally it seemed the Esses at the back of the track was the only section of circuit which was going to retain some of the high-speed character of the original. But based on this it seems they too are being slowed down.
Good spot, Keith. No doubt this has been done to slow the cars down a bit from the esses to the approach to the stadium section.
Yeah that’s a real shame. You’d think if there’s one way to make F1 look faster it’s by having more high-speed sections with little run-off area – seems like we’re going to get neither.
maybe they want DRS on the following straight after turn 11, and want the cars a bit slower on approach to an activation point after turn 11.
@sato113 Hmm, surely DRS would be on the main straight, and possibly a second one out of T3?
definitely out of turn 3, but the main straight looks too long and drs would be overpowered. I think you could gain a natural slipstream there instead.
Absolutely spot on Keith, and I think that was the only corner which – originally – would have stayed exactly on the same place with largely the same radius as it was. Now it’s changed as well – and made slower.
What an utter shame this whole thing might turn out to be.
Plase, don’t make it into another ‘low-and-medium-speed-corner’ borefest, like the Sochi track is. No variety at all. (Thank God, Silverstone and Suzuka manages to stay on the calendar.)
Looks a bit like T9 at COTA: originally it was supposed to be much faster (for example, see this image), but then safety concerns made it much slower.
The only plus of the new T9 at COTA is that it allows for an iconic shot with the sighting tower in the background and the cars cresting a rise in the foreground. What’s more, the conspiracy theorist in me would say it was the main reason they’ve changed the original design.
The original design was much better there as well – it would have allowed for a fast in, slow in the middle, fast out Esses sequence, like the Maggotts-Becketts-Chapel, but then the revised version made in a fast in, slow in the middle and even slower out, which just kills every momentum a following car may have otherwise made into the hairpin turn which follows next. It’s also bad for overtaking – the original desgn would likely have made the last bit of the Esses flat, which would have enabled cars to get closer by the time they reach the hairpin.
Typically, it was a non-Tilke design in the first place, and Tilke ‘adjusted’ it and, of course, messed it up.
I totally expect the same with T9 at the Hermanos Rodriguez – it’s the original design in the F1 2015 and it flows well. I just expect it to be a bit more fiddly in real life. So sad.
Seeing Silverstone 1993 on Sky F1 recently, I can only think of this Mexico update now as taking 80s Silverstone and giving it the 2010 refurb without the intervening period.
@atticus-2 Looking at COTA, they have the Hockenheim stadium section, and Turkey turn 8.. both tracks are now off the calendar, but their iconic sections remain. I’d say it was ominous for Silverstone as well, if Sunday attendance wasn’t 140,000, but maybe it could be said to be Suzuka esses etc. A shame on T9 change – has there been any offs at that corner at all?
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