And the winner (looser?) is ...
Nice topic thrown into the air by the nice Sidepodcast people for the first off-season Thursday – Which are your worst three circuits, and what would you do to fix them?
It is not easy to pick only three worst circuits as there are quite a few not so good ones that come to mind – Bahrain, Shanghai, Barcelona, Valencia, Monaco, Hungary, Singapore, Abu Dhabi. Plus add Turkey that has a good track but no one in Turkey cares …
Anyway, here are my top three worst tracks:
1) Shanghai
I would simply get rid of this race. The organizers haven’t managed to attract any decent audience in 7 years of racing, the city is a mess, the organizers too, just drop it. The track itself is not the worst on the calendar but the event itself probably is. I tried hard trying to like it, I went there 4 times… Did not work …
2) Abu Dhabi
What a ridiculous addition to the calendar. Yes, the journalists are singing odes on free internet but all we fans get is a brand new super expensive facility that is perhaps the worst Tilkedrome of them all. Must have been seriously difficult to spend all that money and built so boring track. Dig it up (or at least parts of it) and try again, if possible before the F1 returns next year …
3) Not easy to choose the third one. I decided to use elimination method by finding some positives on the other tracks I listed above. Monaco usually offers boring races but well, it is Monaco. Singapore GP may not be the most exciting race on calendar but it is a great event for fans although you probably have to be there to appreciate. Valencia has a beach 5 minutes walk from the grandstands. Turkey may have no people watching but the track is OK. Bahrain was horrible this year but hopefully things will get better once we are back to the shorter version of the track.
That leaves Barcelona and Hungaroring. I simply can’t come up with any excuse for these two tracks… I declare a tie for 3rd and 4th here. I would either drop them both or require the organizers to build a sprinkler system that will be on during every session …
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I would bet for Hockenheimring, no fun for me ever since it’s major update. Another Tilkedrome…
Great picks and you’re right it is a tough call between Barcelona and Hungary. Maybe you could give them one year to make an improvement and the one that does the best job gets to stay!
From my standpoint Monaco and Singapore are the worst as it is virtually impossible for drivers to pass. Monaco can overcome this due to their history.
Street courses just do not cut it.