Thursday Thoughts - Fixing what's already broken
Evaluating the circuits that don't light up the Formula One calendar
Published by Christine Blachford
This week sees the return of Thursday Thoughts, a blog-centric way to brighten up the worst day of the week, and help us banish those off-season blues. If you were not around last winter, the concept will be new to you, but it's quite simple. Each Thursday, a lead blogger poses a question on their blog, and then others type up some posts with their answers. The idea is aimed at blogs rather than comments, but even if you don't have your own little corner of the web, any one of the participating bloggers will be more than happy to host your thoughts.
You can see some examples of last year's Thursday Thoughts and sign up to host future weeks on the wiki.
Let us begin, though, with something I mentioned this week in F1 Debrief. We complain a lot about the new circuits that are on the calendar providing us with woeful racing, but at the same time, Bernie doesn't seem keen to pay any heed. With the idea that Valencia and Bahrain are not going anywhere, anytime soon, here's the question.
Which are your worst three circuits, and what would you do to fix them?
It can be anything from tweaking very specific corners, to getting some ground roots motorsport in place to generate interest in the country. Dropping the track from the calendar is not an option though. Bernie wouldn't allow it, and it's the easy way out. We need to be a bit more inventive to fly under the radar. Let us know what you think by writing your post, and linking to it in the comments, or sending it in as a guest post.




Easy, for Abu Dhabi: rip it up and start again. For Valencia: don't ever go harbourside and use the purposebuilt track. For Catalunya: adjust the radius of a few corners and put the last corner back to its former glory.
For Abu Dhabi, i would put a saftey aside and scrap turns 5 and 6 so they straight into the turn 7 hairpin.
Then on the back striaght deviate off to use the bus Stop chicane half way down, , then straightline the turn 8-9 hairpin, and open up the turn 11 turn to run straight into turn 14.
Valencia, i think they need to create a new track, running around the harbour isnt working,a and the regular track there would need to be extended, making it far to twisty.
Singapore, they should run the track back the other way like it was originaly intended
These are not blog posts! ;)
Ooops!
#NeedABlog
*Gets Directions to GoDaddy*
that is good topic for a serious rant :-)
Guest posts actively encouraged. Get writing!
I can't wait to read it!
will try, but have quite a bit to do before disappearing to Macau for the weekend, will see ow it goes
Hehe, ill give it a go later!
For now, im grinding away hard at the office... http://yfrog.com/5c3cqqj
It's a tough life!
:D :D :D
Woohoo! Thursday Thoughts is back!
thursday thoughts PING! gridwalktalk.word…u-do-to-fix-them/
Woooohooo! I do believe you also get to say: First! :)
Third!!
...damn, I messed up my moment.
I think I commented but either Wordpress gobbled it up or I did it wrong!
Apologies, it's published now. The gobbley monster has been put back in the Spam bin
I have mentioned this before on some previous posts, but for me the three worst tracks are Hungary, Singapore and Monaco. The simple reason is that overtaking is nigh-on impossible, and here is the acid test: you are on pole in a 1998 Ford Mondeo with Senna, Mansell, Fangio, Schumacher, G Hill, Prost, Clark behind you. Now, as long as the engine didn't give up or you put it into the hard stuff, you could drive for the duration of the race without being overtaken if you adopted a defensive line. Gilles Villeneuve made it look easy in a Ferrari, but a Ford Mondeo gets better MPG (just).
My solution is very simple - drop the circuits from the calendar. This would make a more manageable 17 races, with the pure street circuits of Monaco and Singapore you have virtually zero wiggle room to alter the circuit layout anyway.
Dropping the circuits isn't allowed, I'm afraid. Bernie won't let ya!
Here's mine: sidepodcast.com/2…-existing-tracks/
quick mini rant before checking out for today:
www.f1wolf.com/20…-f1-circuits.html
Yay! ♥
great question, and loving the responses already.
I am sure a lot of the tracks can be improved by simply sending the useless tarmac of which they are built form to siberia for a "harsh winter" send it back to its original location with potholes and cracks included ... that should do it.. remember canada ??
I needed somewhere quick to write my premise down. Post coming this evening.
Ah. We are your notepad!
Potential topic suggestion from Ms Chandhok:
@mrschristine HOW ABOUT A FUNNY AN IRREVERENT VIEW FOR ONE OF YOUR THURSDAY BLOGS. THINGS WE WANT TO CHANGE IN F1. LOL CHITRA
love it!
Why is Chitra Chandhok always shouting? Is Karun driving his Hispania indoors again?
:)
Maybe Hymie tweets for her. JA JA!!!!!
I never understood the CapsLock Brigade on the internet. We have a database that people write into in Caps Lock because we are told that the people that write into it prefer caps as you don't have to worry about punctuation!
steven's response: sidepodcast.com/2…ilke-to-the-moon/
jordan f1's response: jdkallen.wordpres…ne-can-not-solve/
turkey machine's response: sidepodcast.com/2…-and-start-again/
Is Chitra going to post Thursday Thoughts blog entries?
suggestions at least. we must do that next week.
I started writing to see what would come out and somehow I've lost hours. This wasn't planned. Ah well.
toomuchracing.com…-change-of-track/
Sorry about all the words, I've run out of time to edit it down.
sleep now
Here's my response: tripleleagueracin…rican-tracks-too/
cheers peoples, shall read now.
Blimey, I should go to bed early more often. Loads of responses, and amazing ones at that!
Now, who's up for hosting next week? ;)
Comments are now closed to new entries.