This video is sponsored by CuriosityStream. Get access to my streaming video service,
Nebula, when you sign up for CuriosityStream using the link in the description.
Formula 1 has got a little… tricky in recent years-slash-decades in terms of overtaking
opportunities and side-by-side action. While I remain adamant that the blame for
this lies primarily in the hands of the cars, which are massively long, throw out horrible
wakes of dirty, dirty, dirty air, and have vanishingly small braking distances – it’s
very obvious that the thrill factor promised is delivered more at some circuits than others.
And finally we’re seeing tracks starts to change their layout and geography slightly
to accommodate modern F1. You know, just before we finally change the
actual cars in the name of racing. Cool. Coooool. Zandvoort, for example, is returning to host
the new Dutch Grand Prix this year but decided to do some pretty hefty modifications to heavily
bank and improve a few corners to open up some racing opportunities and to add some
unique and exciting flavour to the circuit. It still looks like close racing might be
a struggle but it seems we’re going to have a lot more fun having a crack at it, at least.
In Russia, meanwhile – well, Sochi had no real excuse, did it, being delivered in 2014.
But we’re finally moving to a new location - another fancy new track: Igora Drive.
And despite being launched in only 2019, even that is getting a significant extension at
its final sector to give the Formula 1 cars a fast, roller-coastery loop with a significant
rise and fall through the long triple left hander.
Will it be awesome? I guess we’ll see in a couple of years.
But this video focuses on two venues with firm feet in the F1 calendar - Australia’s
Albert Park and Abu Dhabi’s Yas Marina. See now, I’ve always enjoyed racing out
in Albert Park and was quite surprised to find a lot of people calling it a bit dull.
I guess I get carried a lot by the ‘first race of the season’ vibes and the super
local atmosphere Melbourne always brings. It is a show.
And there’s always a bit of chaos and unpredictability as the new cars go racing for the first time
out on the dusty park track. But yes, overtaking is a bit tricky there
- increasingly so over the years. Damn you, long cars!
Let’s start slightly off track. Albert Park has quite a narrow pitlane, with
the knock on effect being a low speed limit through the pits. Just 60 kilometres an hour.
This is now widened by a couple of metres and with that comes a 20 kilometre an hour
rise in that speed limit. Cars pitting can now travel at 80 kilometres
per hour which in turn means a smaller penalty for changing tyres and potentially opens up
options for strategy across the race. Taking a second stop won’t be as big a risk now.
On track, Albert Park is widening certain corners: 2.5 metres inside turn 1, 4 metres
inside turn 3, 7.5 metres inside turn 6 and 3 and a half metres at turn 15.
The changes at turns 1 and 3 are aimed squarely at giving more opportunity for overtakes by
increasing the racing line options available through the corner and limiting defensive
moves. The widening of turn 1 gives cars the option
of taking various positions into and through the corner and more readily allowed battles
to continue through turn 2 and up to turn 3 instead of narrowly shuffling cars into
single file. Turn 3 has also been cambering inwards to
reduce understeer and allow cars to hold their line through this corner.
Now, the widening of turn 6 is… dramatic. It used to be a janky little corner - too
tight and fiddly to be an overtaking spot. It was just a bit of an awkward flik flak.
Adding a full 7 and a half metres on the inside of 6 increases the expected speeds by a massive
70 kilometres an hour and will make it part of a new high speed section right through
to turn 11. Previously, turn 6 would kind of separate
the cars a bit as they braked and squirted their way through navigating this part of
the track before the run to the 9/10 chicane. But the organisers believe with the changes
here, the cars can stay in hot pursuit out of turn 4 and stay tight right through turns
6, 7 and 8 before getting to turn 9. So let’s talk about turns 9 and 10. On paper
this looks like it might have been an overtaking spot - a hard braking zone into a chicane.
But it never was. So the chicane is now gone.
Instead, it has been elongated into a fast ‘S’ continuing this quick run from turn
4 right down Lakeside Drive. There’s even talk of another DRS zone being
added here, though it would be mighty frightening if they did it. This remains subject to approval
by the FIA. So this whole section is going to be a RIDE.
Maybe a bit more of that Baku final sector feel with the zipping close to the barriers,
building up speed right up to what’s already a fast, tricky chicane in 6th and 7th gear
through 11 and 12. This is very much a ‘brave it out and hang
on for dear life’ kind of corner as it is, and they’ll be coming at it even faster
now. We then get to turn 13 where they’ve given
it a completely new profile. The entry straight is extended slightly and
the whole corner angle tightened with the track widened inside.
Once again they’re adding camber here to change it from a tricky, understeery corner
into one where you can really stick it in and have a go.
With the harder braking zone, a bit more space and more grip from the camber, there’s real
potential here for a driver to stick their car alongside here, though it will remain
tricky to pull a move off, I suspect. Turn 15, the penultimate corner, is also widened
on entry to give attacking cars more scope to get alongside and not get boxed out by
the defending driver. This will give them the opportunity to perhaps
continue the fight through the final corner and stay closer up the pit straight and have
a crack into turn 1. This, also, will be cambered in a bit.
Overall, we’re looking at a 5 second drop in laptimes, a 15 kilometer an hour increase
in average speed and a 28 metre shortening along the racing line.
It is also likely turns 9 and 10 will lose their status as corners and so the track will
become a ‘14 turn’ circuit, down from 16.
Like with Zandvoort, it remains to be seen how these changes might improve the actual
racing but it looks like a much more dramatic ride and a real challenge for the drivers.
We were originally scheduled to see this new layout in November before the 2021 Australian
Grand Prix was cancelled completely so we’ll see the new cars on the new track next year
instead. But there was talk of permanently moving the
race to later in the year, which could also change the very nature of the track by placing
it in local summer rather than autumn. And so we head to Yas Marina in Abu Dhabi
which almost certainly will go ahead this year.
It seems now to be permanently anchored as the host of the grand finale of the F1 season
and honestly, what a damp squib to end on. It has been a complete nightmare for racing
action since it first showed up in 2009 and really proved its roadblock to overtaking
the very next year when Alonso in a far superior Ferrari got stuck behind lowly Vitaly Petrov
in a lowly Renault for the entire back half of the race, resulting in him losing an almost
certain championship. Not. Good.
In 2016 Hamilton tried to salvage a championship by driving incredibly slowly and holding up
a whole train of cars behind him in the hopes that one of them would overtake Rosberg. There
was no overtaking. It’s incredible how the most modern, most
expensive grand prix track - a circuit that could have been custom designed to do and
be anything - was so utterly pantalooningly rubbish.
The opening sector has a quite narrow, medium speed corner followed by a fast sweeping section
which is actually pretty fun. But then it runs headlong into a clunky chicane
which immediately feeds into a hairpin. Waste of a good hairpin if you ask me.
There’s no space or time here for get alongside and try… anything.
The reduced speeds into the hairpin allow the grandstands a close seat to the action
thanks to less need for long run offs but… what are they going to look at? A shambles,
that’s what. So now they’ve got rid of this silly chicane.
Gone. We now directly connect this run of track
to the first back straight with a more open hairpin.
So now there’s a flat out run from turn 1 to the hairpin, which becomes a 300 kilometres
per hour braking event out of the fast fickety flickety flack of 2, 3 and 4.
The fast complex will be tricky for cars to stay close but there will be fun opportunities
on the brake pedal here that, even if they don’t result in an overtake, will allow
the battle to continue down the double back straights.
These two DRS zones always provided the biggest overtaking potential on the track: The first
into the mid-chicane here and then at the end of the second straight into the left-right-left
and left again of turns 11 to 14 where cars could occasionally rough and tumble it out
through this entire sequence. This was… quite rare, though, as it’s
a narrow, awkward bit of track and we’d more likely see a car bailing out across the
run off rather than sticking it out side-by-side. But this was a potential action point, so
it’s interesting to see them completely remodelling the whole area. But there is good
reason for this. Instead we’ll have this long, open, banked
hairpin that changes this part of the track from slow, pokey, fiddly nonsense into something
fast and dramatic. Cars side by side down the back straight could
continue to brave it out right through the corner potentially. Or alternate lines through
the sweep to set themselves up to be ready to attack at the exit.
This, plus the faster sector 1 could suddenly start putting real work into the tyres in
ways they haven’t really experienced here, changing the very nature of the lap.
But the effects don’t end there. Turn 14 used to lead into the rather thrilling
(from a driving point of view) run through 15, 16 and 17. These are fast corners that
increasingly tighten as you blast through the sequence giving you very little time to
get the car square for the heavy braking into 17.
It’s great fun to drive and now they’ll head in even faster thanks to the new trajectory
into the old turn 15 (now turn 10). So that braking zone into 17 is going to be even trickier.
We then head into the final part of the lap where the last set of changes are being made.
So… this part of the track is rubbish. Always has been.
And it’s partly because they just don’t have space for anything different. Sure, they
didn’t have to put a honking big hotel in the middle of the track but they’ve made
their bed and put a chocolate on the pillow, so I guess we all have to lie in it.
But they are also hemmed in by the actual marina and the rest of the track so it’s…
tricky. It ended up very ‘street tracky’. Stop, right. Stop, left. Stop, left. And so
on, right back to the teensiest little pit straight. The whole time you’re waiting
to actually go racing again, it’s not very Formula 1 at all.
So what they have managed to do now is round off all these corners with wider radii to
make the whole section more flowing and slightly faster so the cars can actually have a proper
run through this section. Potentially it will even improve following
as they won’t be constantly braking and accelerating and concertina-ing; they can
build momentum right through the end of the lap, somewhat.
So what they’re doing here overall is changing the nature of the whole track. They’ve tried
to get rid of most of the point-and-squirt, fiddlinesses and turn the whole place into
a fast flowing ribbon of racetrack. Some of it’s subtle but could change the whole feel
of the place. I’m very interested in what Pirelli choose to bring. It might not be the
softest range this time. The proof of the pudding is under the crust,
of course, but it looks like it will be a more interesting watch at the very least.
So let’s cross our fingers we get some good racing out of it too.
And look, we can’ be sure that the changes made in Australia and Abu Dhabi, at Zandvoort,
at Igora Drive, will make for markedly better racing. But I am very glad they’re finally
doing something to circuits based on actual thoughtful planning.
Plus, with the heavily reinvented machines of 2022 coming, maybe we’re at a turning
point for racing action? Although… what is THIS? Honestly…
Hey, remember how at the top I said this video was sponsored by CuriosityStream and alluded
to Nebula. Well, you may know CuriosityStream as a subscription
streaming service with thousands of superb documentaries and fascinating informative
works like this piece on future energy tech. You know how I love my energy stuff. And this
is narrated by Sigourney Weaver! Now while CuriosityStream is the big budget,
all guns blazing, mega-production hub, they also love us independent education-ish creators,
so they’ve teamed up with Nebula - a streaming platform built by creators to give themselves
room to … stretch their legs outside of YouTube.
There’s lots and lots of wonderful creators making videos on music, film – ooh it’s
me! – science, engineering, art. People you may already know and love like Real Engineering,
Cinema Wins and Jill Bearup (who fights in a wedding dress at one point, amazingly).
Since you’re on my channel you probably like explainer videos and oh, ho ho! There’s
no shortage here! And it’s it’s all completely ad-free.
There’s even stuff you won’t see on YouTube at all. Like entire original series and bonus
content. Like if you were watching this video on Nebula, I’m ranting on about that Jeddah
race track right now instead talking about CuriosityStream and Nebula’s riches.
So here’s the cool bit. If you sign up to CuriosityStream you get Nebula for free. Free
for as long as you’re a CuriosityStream sub. Isn’t that simple and cool?
And if you sign up via my link in the description - curiositystream.com/chainbear - you’ll
get 26% off the annual plan. Just $14.79 for the whole entire year. For both streaming
services. By signing up you’re not only giving yourself
a huge wealth of content on both platforms but you’re helping me AND all us smaller
independent educational-type creators. And you’d be very cool.