Silverstone 2010 Changes - Improved or Stifled Racing Action?

[Koen Verlinde]

The new pit complex was needed in my view, the existing building did need replacing regardless of F1, it was needed to hold large events like the WEC.

So needed for WEC that ELMS still uses the old pit buildings.

"need"

 

[Ghoults]

I think the new configuration is better. Some of the new corners have really nice flow and they connect very nicely one after the another. Some of the old silverstone corners were just chicanes anyways. Abbey was just annoying chicane and personally I hated going through it. And while the pre-2010 Vale was a nice challenging corner it had an annoying sort of surface/camber/elevation profile that made it pretty dull in the end. On paper the old Vale looks great. Slow speed corner that opens up so it is throttle control all the way out. But in reality it was just not fun to drive. Even when you got it right it was more of a feeling of connecting two dots while fighting understeer than wrestling a race car through rewarding complex of corners.

That being said I would have loved to see the old priory/brooklands corners saved. Definitely the best part of the old pre-2010 track. It had just the perfect flow, going under the bridge through that fast right hander and then attacking the next left hander. Then the another slower left hander that followed, then into Luffield. It was just great. The chicane thing they have there now is not that great although it is not bad. Luffied is still great but Losing Priory was big sacrifice.

Overall I like the corners of the new track a lot. The track has great flow now imho. Something the old did not have. The corners open up nicely so you can work the car in a small slide through the kinks and when you hit some of those double apex corners it feels very nice. Even the slow corners feel like they have a purpose and are fun in their own way. The chicane-like corners don't feel like chicanes but nicely connected set of corners that are fun and challenging to get right.

My perfect version of silverstone would probably be mix of different eras though. Going back I'd take the vale and abbey without those chicanes. Definitely take the bridge-priory-brooklands-luffield from the previous version. Take the new vale-club over the old one for sure. I don't remember much of the track I drove in gpl which was the oldest layout but because I don't have any great memories of it I'm just going to assume it was nothing special.

Make it like this:
https://i.imgur.com/Jrt3lTI.png

 

[Andrew Harper]

So needed for WEC that ELMS still uses the old pit buildings.

"need"

Yes what I mean is international series need professional facilities and I'm sorry but the original pit's complex was not very good any more. So a new building was definitely needed in my view.

The upside to that is like you mention, the circuit can accommodate two major series like ELMS and WEC so that's great

However I was surprised when they came up with the plans they did all those years ago, I think we all thought they would simply replace the original complex not create a complete new one on the other side of the circuit

 

[Andrew Harper]

Thinking that it could be far worse if handled by Herr Tilke

Absolutely! lol

 

[Tylda]

I think the new configuration is better. Some of the new corners have really nice flow and they connect very nicely one after the another. Some of the old silverstone corners were just chicanes anyways. Abbey was just annoying chicane and personally I hated going through it. And while the pre-2010 Vale was a nice challenging corner it had an annoying sort of surface/camber/elevation profile that made it pretty dull in the end. On paper the old Vale looks great. Slow speed corner that opens up so it is throttle control all the way out. But in reality it was just not fun to drive. Even when you got it right it was more of a feeling of connecting two dots while fighting understeer than wrestling a race car through rewarding complex of corners.

That being said I would have loved to see the old priory/brooklands corners saved. Definitely the best part of the old pre-2010 track. It had just the perfect flow, going under the bridge through that fast right hander and then attacking the next left hander. Then the another slower left hander that followed, then into Luffield. It was just great. The chicane thing they have there now is not that great although it is not bad. Luffied is still great but Losing Priory was big sacrifice.

Overall I like the corners of the new track a lot. The track has great flow now imho. Something the old did not have. The corners open up nicely so you can work the car in a small slide through the kinks and when you hit some of those double apex corners it feels very nice. Even the slow corners feel like they have a purpose and are fun in their own way. The chicane-like corners don't feel like chicanes but nicely connected set of corners that are fun and challenging to get right.

My perfect version of silverstone would probably be mix of different eras though. Going back I'd take the vale and abbey without those chicanes. Definitely take the bridge-priory-brooklands-luffield from the previous version. Take the new vale-club over the old one for sure. I don't remember much of the track I drove in gpl which was the oldest layout but because I don't have any great memories of it I'm just going to assume it was nothing special.

Make it like this:
https://i.imgur.com/Jrt3lTI.png

Sorry but I don't know where you see flow in new complex. It's slow, understeery and it's just pain in the a... This new section just destroys whole flow of old Silverstone. Old Silverstone was temple of speed, not temple of slowness. Of course Abbey chicane was bad but it was 1000 times better than this new section.

 

[Trezoitao38]

It is a track about traction now. You do some slow corners that are closer to each other and have progressive speed.

Drive this track with cars that strugle more with traction is very interesting.

Drive GT3 cars that have so much grip, even with traction controll off is not interesting on this track.

So, depends a lot what car you drive here. I like a lot to drive with Lotus 98t or a Maserati 250F. It is challenging for these cars.

 

[davewilliams000]

Not a lot to say really.. preferred the pre-2010 layout as it was iconic and very much miss bridge corner, which is now sadly mostly used as a car park (was Porsche club GB car park when I went to the WEC race last year). However the new vastly improveded pits complex was needed to have better facilities.

But I remember on the old layout a crazy F1 race one year when Barrichello was in the Ferrari and overtook loads of cars (can't remember what year), so the old layout did allow overtaking but at that time so did the cars.

 

[Pedro17]

I've never found it to be that interesting. Tilke just made it worse.

 

[123rem]

I've never found it to be that interesting. Tilke just made it worse.

Tilke had nothing to do with Silverstone.

 

[Pedro17]

Tilke had nothing to do with Silverstone.

The later redesigns look like his work, though. So that's just as bad.

 

[123rem]

The later redesigns look like his work, though. So that's just as bad.

Ironically, they deliberately didn't choose Tilke!

https://www.racefans.net/2010/04/29...hey-didnt-use-tilke-for-arena-track-upgrades/

 

[Simon Gardner]

I preferred the older layout with bridge and priory, it had a nicer flow and provided some great racing. That section had some pretty spectacular action during the final round of BTCC in 2000 sitting in the Woodcote grand stands.

 

[formidable]

The old one, please