Bahrain Track Changes: What do you think?
 

As we all know the Sakhir circuit has undergone a raft of changes, mainly concerning the new 'infield' section, increasing lap times to around two minutes.

However, because it was already a pretty long lap, at around 1m 30-35, I wonder why they felt the need to put this section in?

In addition, the new teams haven't been helped initially by the fact that this is now the longest lap (in terms of time) in F1 including Spa. Whereas maybe at Monza or Montreal, or even Sakhir before the alterations, these cars would probably be between 2 and 4 seconds off the pace, they are now 5-7 off in Bahrain and look a lot worse than they probably are in actuality.

My question is this: What does the forum make of the new changes, and were they necessary in your opinion?

That bump at turn 6 needs a steam roller on it!

Other than that my thoughts are... meh.

Absolute pile of carp.. it's too narrow, too twisty and too slow. I seriously doubt it's going to add anything to the race.

In fact, I can see the leader coming across one of the Hispanias in that section during the race, getting held up and whinging about it after!

It has to be THE most bland track of the season. I guess we won't know until Sunday, if and when more overtaking happens on that part of the track. If it doesn't, what a waste of time.

They change a poor design to another poor design. It dont make sense to me! If you are going to change the track, make it for the better.

The extended section is great. First part flows nicely downhill.

I'll have to watch qualy and the race before I can give an opinion on that. It's kind of hard for me to get a feel for it during practice.

first section of the new bit was quite flowing i thought before the tight bit. It doesnt take anything away from the track, but i still think its a bit pointless.

To be honest it's all much of a muchness for me. When I was a kid I used to be able to draw all 16 GP tracks from memory, even when they changed slightly the odd year as some like Silverstone did. whereas all the Tilkedromes just blend into one for me to be honest. For instance when watching FP2 on the web this morning, I couldn't tell at which point the car was on the circuit just from the camera shot, unlike at say Silverstone, Monza, Spa, Suzuka, Monaco, even Barcelona, etc.

It's OK, not bad, not amazing. But let's wait for the race!

The first bit looks good and I like to see the cars moving about on the bumps! the rest of it is far too tight and boring, it barely even looks wide enough for F1 standards!

Like that one at Argentina! That always looked eye wateringly painful...

As for catching a HRT there it'll just understeer wide and allow the leaders through http://www.motorsportforums.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Personally I dont like it, I cant figure why the organisers would want to put that section in.

Its not like because there's more cars on the track, hell, its only 4 extra compared to last year

I think its OK, it seems from practice that quite a few people are struggling through there, so it may force a few errors in Quali and the Race.

The other thing I laughed at while watching FP, was the fact that on a track where it is near impossible to damage your car against a wall or barrier as the run off appears as wide as a car park, Alguersuari found the one place to risk his car when he almost spun on to that small piece of barrier and made his team boss have kittens.

Ha ha, you as well.
Should bulldoze the whole track and start again - without Tilke's help.

I don't understand why they changed the track anyway, there was always plenty of overtaking, and the track flowed pretty well for a stop-start circuit.

The new bit doesn't look bad at all, but I'd have rather seen a couple of really fast corners put in instead of what they have.

However it seems that the cars can follow each other decently through that bit, so we'll see.

Strangely not just through the new bit, the cars seemed able to follow pretty damn closely everywhere. I think it was Alonso and Vettel having a "race" in FP and the Ferrari didn't seem to suffer as badly as previous years.

Perhaps it wistful thinking on my part, but here's hoping.

well, if that were the case (fingers crossed) it could be down to the larger length of the cars, with the air having to go over more sidepod length due to the bigger fuel tanks and somehow in a very nerdy technical way having an effect maybe.

I can't say I'm overly impressed, they've simply made the lap longer and not brought anything exciting to the proceedings.

The new 6-7-8 combination isn't bad. Turn 6 is quite fast and the bumps make it even more interesting. I still prefer the original layout.