Zandvoort Changes Aim to Increase Overtaking

[liby88]

Please more german autobahn -.-

 

[Andrea Lojelo]

Zandvoort is a very special track for me. It's where I drove my first group of supercars, including the Lamborghini Gallardo. Just thinking about that experience and the engine roar of that beast, give me goosebumps after so many years! That was the trigger for me to start working on car physics, and that's how, with the great technical support and passion of the whole RSR team, the Gallardo for nKPRO was born.

After that, when AC came out, I've convinced Fulvio f.gek to start working on the track, and I've been helping him to check and refine every single part of the track. Zandvoort was then included as the first official track not created in house by KS. What an achievement for Fulvio!

Soon Zandvoort will be in F1, and living as a foreigner here in the Netherlands, this makes me particularly happy.
People here are getting crazy for that.
I think that the main change that they will have to do is to create a lot of bicycle parking big enough to host all those people with orange t-shirt!

Yes, Zandvoort will change, and that is, as any change, a bit scary! I'll wait to see the first race there to make my judgment on the new track layout, although, I don't expect miracles.
Most probably every time we will use the new layout in our favourite simulators, we will still miss the old bits. Despite I'm still looking for the original bus stop chicane in Spa, after a while I got used to the new track.

But if this is what it takes to give bring back F1 to Zandvoort, this would just be the price to pay.
At the end this is clearly a big financial operation, that will bring tons of cheering people to the circuit.
For sure I'll be one of those, having this weird experience of going to a racing track by bicycle, proudly wearing a red Ferrari shirt!

 

[Dragon60]

... and Dieter Zetsche is going to pay the modification.

 

[kedy89]

Just for the record, Zandvoort has already been ruined. The current layout is far from the original one.

 

[silhouette106]

"It will be banked in such a way that you can go flat out with DRS open, and in that way we hope to encourage more overtaking for the Tarzan corner. It will be 17 degrees, so the corner will have the same character as the last corner in Brazil."

That's an awful lotta banking (Indy has 9.2°, its roughly equal to Las Vegas)

 

[Fat-Alfie]

*praying the dutch don't add acres of tarmac run-off areas, negating the need for any driving skill

 

[Koen Verlinde]

That's an awful lotta banking (Indy has 9.2°, its roughly equal to Las Vegas)

Speeds at Indy or Zandvoort are a "tiny" bit different though. So the perception of the banking might be the same in sensation, but at Zandvoort it won't be at 300+

I'm happy for Kunos though. The 2019 lay-out for ACC won't have to be changed so we probably get the best and most detailed version in a sim "before it got ruined".

 

[anirudhshirsat97]

I knew people will start crying but damn.

 

[Wojtek Baran]

I like the Idea of putting banking on Arie Luyendyk Bocht. But what I'd like to see is getting rid of this Hans Ernst Bocht, and replacing it with 100-110 degrees lefthander. Why? First of all, it would create a lefthander overtaking point. All overtaking points at Zandvoort are now righthanders (Tarzan, Chicane before Hans Ernst Bocht), which is boring for the drivers. Second, it's gonna increase straight after Turn 8 to little over 600 meters (now it's roughly 500), which can serve as DRS zone. Also, I would slightly redesign turn 8 itself into a double apex corner, a bit like Spoon at Suzuka (but way shorter, of course), therefore giving another few meters of straight to accelerate on. But this redesign is not entirely necessary. Take a look:

Of course, run-off area after the new turn 9 (call it Verstappen Bocht? ) should be created, which would then take some of the paddock space, but that space can be restored on former Hans Ernst Bocht. Rest of the circuit is quite alright as it is.

 

[OzzyNeil]

So they're turning a track with no overtaking into a track with overtaking so it's like other tracks that have overtaking for cars that don't do overtaking.

 

[Koen Verlinde]

I knew people will start crying but damn.

Comparable to a situation where Zolder is choosen for a F1 race, it's already almost impossible to overtake upon with DTM, GT and touring cars, let alone the supersophisticated F1's.

It's normal that fans see these "good news messages" for what they really are.

 

[Raikku]

Drove this track around some laps last night in Assetto thinking that "soon this track will be destroyed...".

 

[Raikku]

Just for the record, Zandvoort has already been ruined. The current layout is far from the original one.

BTOTB! Bring the old tracks back!

 

[Fat-Alfie]

BTOCB!

 

[bsmooth]

Its never going to be what it was in the 60's, which some found out was pretty dangerous.But I must say I like the idea of runoffs, opposed to sand. About the banking it sounds a bit much, I think maybe 10 or 12 would be a good compromise.
I know once its done it can't be taken back, but change is going to happen, thats inevitable.I'm glad its back on the venue, especially for the fans, who have always been pretty special in that area.
Lets give it a fair shot, before we shoot it down.

 

[Stephen O'Sullivan]

"And as we all know it's the pitstops and the confrontation of old tyres versus new tyres, that is what creates the overtaking."

That is F1's problem in a nutshell.

 

[tlsmikey]

Formula 1= Destroyer of all that is good in racing

 

[Koen Verlinde]

That is F1's problem in a nutshell.

It's really sad that a person who didn't benefit from all the Jos and Max Verstappen hype, yet won Le Mans in 1988 with Jaguar now says BS like that to defend idiotic changes in the hope of creating some artificial environment where F1 might have a nice race. Zandvoort no longer is a F1 track, no matter how much run off you create, it's not part of the track. Stop pretending like it does anything.

Just shows that people always have a price. I hope the Dutch people don't show up next year cause only that will say that all the blabla was taken at face value: to be one the worst politicians in the world level of idiocy.

 

[Mark Ratzenbacher]

These changes are a very late april fools day joke ?

 

[Richard Dastardly]

F1 would never have gone back if the old layout had been there, it was absurdly fast ( I would imagine even GT3s wouldn't have run it as-is without some high-energy barrier walls ). The new layout is far from a classic IMO, but some of these moves do not seem an improvement - like widening T3-4-5-6 which is mostly all that's left of the old track.

It might help the DTM race a bit, because they need all the help they can get...