What makes an ideal venue for a Components 1 race?
The world championship takes in a variety of programs: Everlasting tracks and closed streets; Lengthy straights and complicated sequences; Tremendous-fast corners and tight chicanes.
What mixture of those provides as much as the last word Components 1 monitor? Does it solely matter if they supply a diversified race with plenty of overtaking, or does it matter how difficult the monitor is for drivers?
The world championship consisted of a record-breaking 24 rounds final 12 months. It’ll repeat each one in all them in 2025. With no substantial adjustments to the layouts anticipated, right here is RaceFans’ rating of each present F1 venue. Every has been graded on the problem supplied by its structure, the standard of racing it produces (partly based mostly on RaceFans’ Rate the Race scores), and the way its viewers and site contribute to the ambiance of the occasion.
24: Yas Marina
Scores | |
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Environment | 2 |
Format | 2 |
Racing | 1 |
Yas Marina was constructed with a money-no-object price range on a man-made island. Its designers wasted their clean canvas, producing a tedious, gradual structure with huge, forgiving asphalt run-off areas and little driving problem.
A 2021 overhaul deleted a number of of its worst corners, but the structure nonetheless has little to commend it moreover the novelty worth of a pit lane exit which tunnels beneath the primary nook. Had it not loved the advantage of internet hosting a number of title-deciders, virtually none of Yas Marina’s races could be memorable.
23: Losail Worldwide Circuit
Scores | |
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Environment | 1 |
Format | 4 |
Racing | 1 |
Just like Bahrain when it comes to environment, albeit with a faster, more difficult structure. Probably too difficult for F1’s tyres, as all three of its races have seen both surprising punctures or, in 2023, emergency measures to keep away from them. That makes it affordable to query whether or not fashionable F1 vehicles are literally appropriate with this monitor.
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22: Miami Worldwide Autodrome
Scores | |
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Environment | 2 |
Format | 2 |
Racing | 3 |
Liberty Media’s many makes an attempt to carry a race in downtown Miami had been thwarted. Clearly determined to make good on its pledge to deliver F1 again to Florida, it signed off this insipid course which winds its method across the grounds of the Exhausting Rock Stadium.
The ghastly flip 14-15 chicane appears like one thing from a late-era Champ Automobile road monitor and absolutely ranks as F1’s worst nook. None of its three grands prix so far generated a lot motion, and the race is greatest recognized for outrageous meals costs and the much-derided ‘pretend marina’ of its inaugural 12 months.
21: Bahrain Worldwide Circuit
Scores | |
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Environment | 1 |
Format | 2 |
Racing | 4 |
The primary glimpse of the Bahrain International Circuit simply over 20 years in the past was a miserable signal of how far F1 had lowered the bar in its eagerness to court docket rich race promoters. Now the world championship was racing on a scaled-up go-kart monitor in the midst of a desert. It proved an indication of issues to come back.
Whereas nobody would describe its structure as difficult, it has at the least produced some good races, although not final 12 months. Its transition to an evening race in 2014 has helped to masks its lower than telegenic, ex-camel farm environment.
20: Jeddah Corniche Circuit
Jeddah is a pretend road monitor, laid out on purpose-built roads throughout the metropolis. Whereas it has some impressively fast corners, it opens with a transparent instance of horrible design: a desperately gradual chicane with an simply cheated run-off space.
Scores | |
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Environment | 1 |
Format | 4 |
Racing | 2 |
F1 drivers are considerably conflicted about Jeddah, having fun with its excessive speeds but additionally commonly describing it because the most dangerous track – and never simply due to the missiles landing nearby.
19: Baku Metropolis Circuit
Scores | |
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Environment | 1 |
Format | 3 |
Racing | 3 |
This isn’t a racing monitor structure, it’s a tour bus route supposed to indicate off native landmarks. Nevertheless the course turns into extra fascinating after the primary sector and the excessive speeds make for a worthwhile problem.
Baku has a status for producing crash-strewn races which it solely often lives as much as, at the least so far as F1 is anxious.
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18: Shanghai Worldwide Circuit
Scores | |
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Environment | 2 |
Format | 2 |
Racing | 3 |
China’s world championship venue is an oddball affair. It options some genuinely uncommon corners however lacks movement, stopping and beginning. It’s constructed on a completely totally different scale to most tracks, massively large in locations with an unlimited again straight.
Fashionable F1 vehicles can at the least race fairly effectively there, and F1’s lengthy absence as a result of Covid-19 pandemic doesn’t appear to have diminished native enthusiasm for the race.
17: Circuit de Catalunya
‘Familiarity breeds contempt’ was the aphorism which captured F1’s relationship with the house of the Spanish Grand Prix for a few years. As groups commonly examined on the Circuit de Catalunya, they typically arrived with their vehicles well-tuned to the monitor.
Scores | |
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Environment | 3 |
Format | 3 |
Racing | 2 |
A few revisions within the 2000s didn’t assist: Flip 10 was tightened in a futile try to assist overtaking, and a chicane added on the finish of the lap for security causes. These adjustments have since been reversed and its structure is healthier for it, but it surely appears prone to disappear from F1’s schedule after subsequent 12 months when the race strikes to Madrid. It could be considered extra fondly as soon as it’s been changed with one more road circuit.
16: Hungaroring
Scores | |
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Environment | 3 |
Format | 3 |
Racing | 2 |
The Hungaroring was derided when the compact, winding course joined the calendar in 1986, at a time when F1 nonetheless visited the monstrously quick Osterreichring a brief distance away. It’s a mark of the usual of later circuits that its status has improved, although the monitor itself additionally benefited from optimistic revisions in 1989 and 2003. An all-new paddock will greet groups this 12 months.
15: Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez
The Mexican Grand Prix promoters are blessed with a perfect venue for his or her spherical of the world championship – not many metropolises have FIA grade one everlasting racing circuits inside their environs. Nevertheless the monitor’s refurbishment for its return to the championship after a 23-year absence was a case examine in the best way to spoil a circuit.
Scores | |
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Environment | 5 |
Format | 1 |
Racing | 2 |
The mighty Peraltada, scene of one in all F1’s best overtaking strikes of all time, was bypassed in favour of a gradual tour by way of a former baseball stadium. It couldn’t be made protected for contemporary F1 vehicles, they stated, however only a few years later they had been racing at Jeddah.
Each nook on the monitor was tightened. Little doubt the designers confronted a problem working throughout the limits that they had, however did corners mixtures like two-three and four-five-six-seven actually should be so excessively gradual? Mexico’s enthusiastic followers deserved a lot better.
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14: Singapore
Scores | |
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Environment | 3 |
Format | 4 |
Racing | 2 |
F1’s authentic evening race was additionally its most gruelling occasion for a few years, although it has doubtlessly misplaced that crown to Losail. The 2023 structure tweak additionally took the sting off it – in truth, it took 4 edges off it, creating an extended straight close to the top of the lap.
Arguably this has diminished the monitor’s character considerably, making it much less brutally powerful over a grand prix distance, with out including a lot to it. Nevertheless it stays one in all few true road tracks on the F1 calendar, and one the place overtaking is nearly attainable. One other revamp is anticipated subsequent 12 months.
13: Las Vegas Strip Circuit
Scores | |
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Environment | 4 |
Format | 2 |
Racing | 4 |
F1’s latest venue has solely held two races and might only hold one more. Though its structure is straightforward, this provides it the uncommon attribute of being one of many few really high-speed venues F1 visits: A Hockenheim with casinos as a substitute of timber.
12: Pink Bull Ring
Scores | |
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Environment | 4 |
Format | 3 |
Racing | 3 |
The status of the Pink Bull Ring can’t assist however undergo by comparability to the daunting Osterreichring which preceded it. Nevertheless, the monitor has rather a lot to commend it: Good alternatives for racing, genuinely fast corners and spectacular surroundings. The monitor operators are additionally lastly getting on high of the monitor limits downside which blighted it for much too lengthy.
11: Albert Park
Scores | |
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Environment | 4 |
Format | 3 |
Racing | 3 |
Melbourne’s scenic parkland circuit has at all times been tough with little room for error. Its well-judged overhaul, first utilized in 2022, amplified these qualities, growing the pace of a number of corners and deleting one in all its slower bends. Passing stays tough, however that is nonetheless one in all F1’s greatest short-term tracks.
Fortunately, it has been reinstated because the season-opening race this 12 months, a task which fits it to a tee.
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10: Monaco
Scores | |
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Environment | 4 |
Format | 5 |
Racing | 1 |
After all Monaco doesn’t deserve a spot among the many 10 greatest circuits when it comes to the standard of racing it produces. When it’s dry, the Monaco Grand Prix is often a procession, and a quirk of F1’s guidelines made it even worse final 12 months.
However the problem of this impossibly slender and twisty circuit is really distinctive. Avenue tracks like this need to be seen to understand simply how ludicrous it’s that drivers sort out them at F1 speeds. Some calls for the Monte-Carlo course have to be overhauled to swimsuit fashionable F1, or allotted with fully; quite the opposite, it’s the excessively large and heavy vehicles which want to alter.
9: Imola
Scores | |
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Environment | 4 |
Format | 4 |
Racing | 2 |
Imola will ceaselessly be related to the double tragedy of 1994, following which the monitor was emasculated with but extra chicanes. Nevertheless a few of its high-speed character was restored previous to its return to the F1 calendar in 2020.
It stays a beautiful venue, the vehicles winding their method by way of the Parco delle Acque Minerali. The group invariably reserve the loudest cheers for his or her beloved Ferraris.
8: Zandvoort
Scores | |
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Environment | 5 |
Format | 4 |
Racing | 2 |
If the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez suffered an unpleasant facelift in 2015, Zandvoort loved far more delicate remedy six years later. Already a lot modified from the model F1 beforehand raced at within the eighties, a lot of its character was retained by way of an clever and delicate updating, together with the addition of two steeply banked turns.
The fast, undulating corners in the midst of the monitor are its spotlight, although it’s in all probability nonetheless too slender in locations for F1 vehicles to race effectively. Sadly, they won’t return after next year.
7: Circuit Gilles Villeneuve
Scores | |
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Environment | 4 |
Format | 3 |
Racing | 4 |
The Isle Notre Dame in Montreal barely has sufficient room for a Components 1-grade monitor. Consequently, it has a number of compromises, not least its very awkward pit lane entrance.
However the monitor named for the late Gilles Villeneuve merely works, daring drivers to take just a bit an excessive amount of pace over its tough kerbs and between its immediately punishing partitions. It’s on the doorstep of a terrific metropolis, too.
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6: Monza
Like Monaco, Monza is one thing of an anachronism, albeit an excellent one. It’s nonetheless F1’s quickest circuit, and enjoys the advantage of an outstanding setting and passionate crowd.
Scores | |
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Environment | 5 |
Format | 4 |
Racing | 3 |
Because the seventies, F1 has needed to tame Monza’s excessive speeds utilizing chicanes, there being inadequate room for bigger run-offs at lots of its corners. Though the Rettifilo is likely one of the most unappealing corners wherever, it’s the solely factor to be stated towards this magnificent piece of the previous.
5: Circuit of the Americas
Scores | |
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Environment | 4 |
Format | 4 |
Racing | 5 |
Austin’s Components 1 circuit is an excellent rebuke to the declare that nobody builds good everlasting racing amenities any extra. From its steep climb after the beginning, by way of its sinuous and fast first sector, and across the fast turns 16-17-18, this can be a massively spectacular course.
The tedious run by way of turns 12 to fifteen is the one factor to be stated towards it. However even this ought to be improved this 12 months, because the monitor operators are understood to be lastly taking steps to toughen up the excessively beneficiant run-off areas which F1 drivers have abused for years.
4: Interlagos
Scores | |
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Environment | 5 |
Format | 4 |
Racing | 4 |
When the unique Interlagos circuit was shortened for F1’s return in 1990, the designers stumble on a profitable combination of acceleration zones, nook speeds and gradient which make for each a difficult course and excellent racing. The pit lane entrance is a bit sketchy, however that has been considerably improved by current enhancements.
Even when it doesn’t rain and there isn’t a championship left to determine, Interlagos usually produces memorable races. The locals could have one in all their very own to cheer on this 12 months, which ought to add to the ambiance.
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3: Silverstone
Scores | |
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Environment | 3 |
Format | 5 |
Racing | 5 |
Few tracks have lasted as lengthy or gone by way of as many adjustments as Silverstone whereas remaining in such fine condition. Its final change in 2010 provoked some knee-jerk grumbles concerning the lack of Bridge, a nook which had already been toned down by the addition of a chicane. Its new sequence, although considerably ponderous, has opened up additional overtaking alternatives.
The remainder of the monitor is thrillingly quick: Copse, Maggotts/Becketts and Stowe are unimaginable locations to observe F1 vehicles present what they will do. Silverstone’s origins as an airfield make it nothing a lot to have a look at, however the racing and packed crowd often makes up for that.
2: Suzuka
Few circuits encourage the sort of respect and reverence amongst F1 drivers that Suzuka does. The primary sector is a blinding sequence of high-speed switchback corners, and the problem doesn’t let up from there till drivers attain the lengthy straights on the finish of the lap.
Scores | |
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Environment | 5 |
Format | 5 |
Racing | 3 |
It’s had a number of tweaks to tame a few of its extra excessive corners, notably 130R, which isn’t what it was. Passing isn’t straightforward both, and races might be processional, however Suzuka retains its capability to impress.
The Japanese followers are enthusiastic, educated and switch up in large numbers even when there isn’t a neighborhood driver on the grid.
1: Spa-Francorchamps
F1 final raced on the outdated, ‘monster’ Spa-Francorchamps in 1970. When it returned 13 years later, the circuit had been shortened and renovated but additionally a lot improved.
Scores | |
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Environment | 4 |
Format | 5 |
Racing | 5 |
Whereas majestic corners reminiscent of Eau Rouge had been retained, others reminiscent of Pouhon had been created. They continue to be over 40 years later, although the ever-improving capabilities of F1 vehicles and inevitable adjustments to run-off areas have lessened their problem considerably.
Even so, that is one in all few circuits the place F1 vehicles can really impress us with their capabilities, and accomplish that in a picturesque atmosphere. Except for the mandatory evil of its ponderous last chicane, Spa is a masterpiece. Sadly, F1 will solely go to it as soon as each different 12 months after 2027.
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