New Qatar Circuit

[IRLS]

Plans for the new Doha circuit in Qatar were revealed to some Moto GP people at Estoril, Does any one know what the layout is like? All I know is there is a main straight over a kilometre long and 16 turns.

[david_james2000]

http://www.racingcircuits.net/Qatar/Doha.html

[GP Racer]

Who cares what the track will look like, the only fans they'll draw in Qatar for a race are American and British soldiers on R&R!

[Mghhoot]

Having seen the new Qatar layout, it looks very interesting--EXCEPT for the 90-degree turns at both ends of the start/finish straight. This leads to my general question--what is this obsession with track designers about putting in narrow chicanes and 90-degree-plus turns at the end of long straights, both at new tracks and when re-doing old tracks? All these real slow turns seem to do is to jam up traffic instead of allowing racing at speeds. The worst seem to be on the F1 circuits at Magny-Cours (two 90-degree turns with only about 10-feet [3.1 meters] of track separating), Nurburgring (nearly 120-degree turn at the end of the main straight), Monza (the first chicane after start/finish line), with some plans seemingly add some chicane-type turns to Suzuka, Silverstone, and others.
I know there is a need for safety, but is the counter to that the lack of more than one racing line through these $@!^&%# chicanes and 90-degree turns???

[Mghhoot]

OOPS!

In my previous post on this subject, I erroneously ascribed the charateristics of the new track outside Istanbul, Turkey (with sharp 90-degree turns at both ends of the start/finish straight) to the track in Qatar (which does NOT have that characteristic. My apologies for mixing up tracks and their layouts.

[IRLS]

Your right that track in Istanbul looks ****. At the far end of the track theres a chicane made up of a hairpin and a 90 degree turn. Why cant tracks have first turns like the one at Imola pre '95?

[Mghhoot]

Just for my clarification--do you mean by "the first turn at Imola pre-1995", the Tamburello chicane (re-done from a high-speed curve after Ayrton Senna's deadly crash in 1994), or the turn immediately after the end of the pit exit (according to this site's track map of Imola)?