Racetracks die for many reasons: sometimes they're deemed unsafe, sometimes they lose money, sometimes they get houses built on top of them. Which ones need to come back?
Today we saw an Audi R18 Long Tail (all 5.4 inches of extra length) run at Monza without the end-of-straight chicane. Watching it hit the Grande Curva flat out felt like something out of the 1930s.
And in a way, it is. Top-level racecars are just too fast for most old tracks, which is why many classic circuits only run lower level races, like the Nurburgring Nordschleife, or they run in altered, slower form, like Monza.
Just once, please, maybe, our readers want to see those old conifgurations come back.
I would love to see the WEC race at the big 3 high speed circuits:
- Monza without chicane
- Old Hockenheim
- Le Mans with chicane-free Mulsanne StraightImagine Porsche, Audi and Toyota battle it out at 215mph. This would be true LeMans spirit.
Of course, there's safety, as ZeFookus points out.
Turn 1 crashes are exactly why this layout will never get run in F1 again. Taking La Curva Grande at 220 is good in theory until Grosjean or Maldonado get bored. Or if they tell Vettel not to crash, it might just cause the same result.
So let's step outside of the real world for a second and dream of what a top-spec race at one of history's dead, banned, or altered tracks would look like? I would sell most of my internal organs to see a McLaren run flat out at the old AVUS banking one last time.
Photo Credit: Grand Prix