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Moscow Raceway
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I just saw the race in Moscow on Eurosport. Am I glad F1 never went there. There’s absolutely nothing interesting about this track other than the “Faux Rouge”, which seemed to catch out quite a few drivers, but since it doesn’t lead up to a straight, it’s nothing special either. Not to mention the problems with electricity and the lack of recovery vehicles.
It was pathetic, the first 30-40 minutes saw absolutely nothing happen. I was pretty much asleep when Sorensen spun, which was really due to the fact that he tried to pass on a track that doesn’t support passing. Its just so boring, there is nowhere to pass!
But maybe it’ll be better for GT cars. They almost always put up a great show, no matter how boring the track.
Am I glad F1 never went there.
Don’t you think you’re being a little quick to judge? It was one Formula Renault race.
You can’t tell how smoothly the organizational aspects would’ve gone if it was F1, but as for the track itself, it’s safe to say it’s crap after just one race. If F1 raced here this year, it could’ve been good, but that says more about F1 in 2012 than it does about the track.
How did this end up costing 10x more than Shanghai anyway (if the figures on wikipedia are correct)? Lots of deep Russian pockets must’ve gotten a whole lot deeper. It’s hard to take this project seriously.
Everyone wrote Valencia off after the first race. And while it consistently disappointed for the next few years and was generally reviled, it did produce a fantastic race this year. I think you’re being far too critical of the circuit after just one race in a spec series.
I think you’re too quick to question Valencia’s dullness. The race there this year was one of the best in a long, long time, but that doesn’t mean Valencia is suddenly a good track.
Just like one bad race doesn’t make Moscow Raceway a bad track, but if you take a look at the layout, you don’t need any race to tell you it’s next to impossible to overtake around there.
Slightly off-topic, but I thought the FR3.5 race ended strangely. The format of the race was 45 minutes plus one lap. However, as the clock was ticking down to zero, the safety car was still out because it was taking long to tow a car away. With ten seconds to go, the safety car passed the start-finish line, so there would be one lap to race in case the safety car could pull off by the end of that lap. However, as the towing wasn’t quite done in this final safety car lap, the safety car slowed down to a crawl to allow the work to finish and have the drivers have one more lap of racing.
By the way, I think the criticism of the track layout is a bit harsh. I also watched the first FR3.5 race at the Nurburgring two weeks ago, and it was pretty boring, with two overtaking manoeuvers and one failed overtaking attempt, which saw a driver spin at the first corner. We’ve seen plenty of interesting F1 races at the circuit, though.
Vitaly Petrov didn’t think much of it either…
“The raceway could have been done a little bit more interesting,” said Petrov after a couple of exhibition laps. “It doesn’t have enough zing.”
“It lacks high-speed corners, some sections of the track are a bit slow, and it doesn’t bring a lot of pleasure to go through [corners] in second or third gear.”Good to see a driver saying what he thinks, but probably not what they were hoping to hear when they invited him!
Full article: http://en.rian.ru/sports/20120714/174603511.html
I can’t comment on the track as I missed today’s race (the time difference caught me out) but will try and catch race 2, which seems to be 12:30 British time.@bullfrog I think you might be caught out again! From what I know it’s around 11:30 European time, which should be 10:30 British?
@Enigma you’re right – 13:30 local time, 10:30 BST. Thanks for that!
I think you’re too quick to question Valencia’s dullness. The race there this year was one of the best in a long, long time, but that doesn’t mean Valencia is suddenly a good track.
I’m not saying that Valencia is suddenly a perfect circuit. But nor do I believe you can afford to write the Moscow circuit off on the basis of one race.
The layout actually looked pretty interesting, although very Tilke-esque (1 or 2 long straights, plenty of slow stuff). And then when the TV pictures came up, I couldn’t believe it was the same track. It’s just so slow. Apart from the one kink on the back straight, there isn’t a proper fast corner on the track.
Maybe it wouldbe better if they cut out the loop behind the pits. There is a connecting road that allows for it, though it would shorten the circuit down from 3.9km to about 3.5km – but the beauty of that is that it would allow the Russians to add a two kilometre extension somewhere else on the circuit and be up to FIA Grade-1 standards.
Of course, that assumes the owners hold ambitions of hosting Formula 1, and right now the contract for the Russian Grand Prix has the race at Sochi, so I can’t see it happening any time soon – unless the Russians have a) cut a deal to hold a race there in 2013 in order to protect their calendar spot for 2014, b) will hold a race there in 2015 if the IOC derails the race at Sochi or c) both.
There are houses just North and South of the track, the only good direction to expand the track to is East, but that would make the position of the pit straight very awkward and difficult to incorporate.
No idea why they didn’t make the track good in the first place, there was plenty of room, a nice topography and plenty of resources (4.5 billion!!!???) to do it. This track is an inexcusable failure and probably a money pit.
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