Zandvoort banking will be twice as steep as Indy
Zandvoort has revealed that the banking at its final corner will be akin to an American oval track, with it set to be twice as steep as turns at Indianapolis.
As part of a revamp of the Dutch track ahead of its return to the Formula 1 calendar in 2020, the circuit is undergoing a revamp to bring it up to current grand prix standards.
One of the changes will be to bank the final corner, and it has now been confirmed that it will be angled at 32 percent, which is the equivalent of 18 degrees.
This compares to Indianapolis, which hosted the United States Grand Prix between 2000 and 2007, that has its banking at approximately nine degrees. But it is still short of some of some other famous banked corners, like the old Monza layout that was at 21 degrees and Daytona, which peaks at 31 degrees.
Zandvoort CEO Robert van Overdijk told Dutch radio station BNR Nieuwsradio: "That corner will for sure be the most spectacular part of our renewed circuit.
"The corner will be banked 32 percent. So the difference in height from the bottom of the corner to the top will be around four and a half metres. That's considerable.
"We are in fact making an American corner on an otherwise European circuit. That is absolutely unique."
The final corner will not be the only banked turn at Zandvoort, with the famous Hugenholtz corner also being tweaked so it can allow cars to follow each other side-by-side.
"The third corner [Hugenholtz] of the track will be banked as well for the F1 race," added van Overdijk.
"It will be made parabolic, so that two cars can get through the corner next to each other and more importantly at the same speed. The banking will vary between eight and 18 percent for that purpose."
While the changes to the circuit will make the venue very different from how it was in the past, van Overdijk said that there were no concerns about being so bold with famous corners.
"Of course Zandvoort has a big name historically," he said. "But if you want to keep the track exactly as it was, you really start from the idea that everything used to be better in the good old days. And of course that is not the truth. So I am not worried about that."
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| Series | Formula 1 |
| Author | Jonathan Noble |
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