The Case Against Chicanes

[johnny comelately]

Originally from what I know, they were put in to slow curves that were too fast,a la the old Hockenheim up the back, where if you would have seen Randy Mamola in 6th banging his fairing on the ground, you would agree it needed slowing down, but it was possibly too much and turned it into what was called a mickey mouse part of a track (stop/go) (except it became a very handy place to do plug chops), then at Bathurst they put in the Chase which is perfect in my opinion , no stop and turn and turn and go with virtually NO passing (except under the first braking and which often ends up in crashes) , which is my point.
here are some examples -
Circuit Gilles Villeneuve – turns 12, 13 -13m radii and 3 - 4 m between centres
Baku City Circuit turn 5 & 6 “
Spa 19, 20 – 10m rad less than 90 degrees, 20m between cs
Monza turns 1 &2 - 8,10,10
Singapore 16 through 21
Sepang 1 &2
Suzuka 16, 17
Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez 4,5 and 13, 14
Yas Marina Circuit, take your pick

[johnny comelately]

the remedy design, aka the chase

[Big Tea]

Probably wrong, but I thought some were put in to get the track over a minimum laptime? I assume other work took longer to get in place?

Le Mans was to keep top speed reasonable, but I think that was exceptional.

[zac510]

So what exactly is your case?

[DiogoBrand]

So what exactly is your case?

My interpretation is that he wants all chicanes in the world to be replaced by the Bathurst chicane. But I'm probably as clueless as you are.

[LeClerc]

Teflonso can't pronounce "chicane", so there's that....

[Manoah2u]

So what exactly is your case?

i was wondering exactly the same. i plowed three times through op but to no avail

[adrianjordan]

We could improve things even further...if we just had a giant oval then they wouldn't need to slow down at all for the entire race... [/sarcasm]

I like chicanes, they test driver skill as they're easy to mess up by taking too much, or too little, curb. Get it wrong and you lose drive during tge acceleration phase of the next straight and give a chasing driver a chance to close the gap.

[muramasa]

Chicane itself doesnt bother me. It's the lack of flow in modern tracks in general (esp Tilke) that's the huge problem, and that's what makes any corners boring trash.
All those curves in old tracks have/had own character, some of those chicanes are and were good passing spot and challenging as well actually. Modern corners are just a dull distasteful combination of massive straight of whatever length and massive kinks of whatever radius. No charm, no subtlety, no character. Watching cars going round those modern corners tediously is really frustrating while watching cars flying around in Spa, Suzuka, Silverstone (prev config) etc is so exhilarating.
Modification made to Spa's busstop chicane and main straight is really good example of horrible modernization. The whole busstop-main straight section used to have flow, subtlety and character, and busstop chicane was very exciting passing spot. Now it's tasteless garbage.

[FightingHellPhish]

Chicane itself doesnt bother me. It's the lack of flow in modern tracks in general (esp Tilke) that's the huge problem, and that's what makes any corners boring trash.
All those curves in old tracks have/had own character, some of those chicanes are and were good passing spot and challenging as well actually. Modern corners are just a dull distasteful combination of massive straight of whatever length and massive kinks of whatever radius. No charm, no subtlety, no character. Watching cars going round those modern corners tediously is really frustrating while watching cars flying around in Spa, Suzuka, Silverstone (prev config) etc is so exhilarating.
Modification made to Spa's busstop chicane and main straight is really good example of horrible modernization. The whole busstop-main straight section used to have flow, subtlety and character, and busstop chicane was very exciting passing spot. Now it's tasteless garbage.

Yep. Flow of the course matters. Tilkdromes are almost always terrible.

A well placed bus stop can work but it HAS to be designed in a way to preserve the flow and rhythm of the course. The complexity and flow of the bus stop at Daytona has created some big nail biting moments. I think the idea should be to make tough changes that flow with the course, not slow ones like Tilke.

[strad]

I think many of the modern chicanes are overly slow and that is the problem.
What y'all mean by breaking the flow. You should be able to drive thru them not come to a stop like a couple of 90° corners right together.

[godlameroso]

We could improve things even further...if we just had a giant oval then they wouldn't need to slow down at all for the entire race... [/sarcasm]

I like chicanes, they test driver skill as they're easy to mess up by taking too much, or too little, curb. Get it wrong and you lose drive during tge acceleration phase of the next straight and give a chasing driver a chance to close the gap.

I think chicanes are fine leading on to straights, but not at the end of them. I prefer single corners at the end of straights, the best thing to put at the end of straights is corners with a long mid corner section. A sort of tear drop cul-de-sac style turn where the drivers have to go slowly but also play with the throttle. They almost got it right with the 'Peraltada' in Mexico. The hairpin in Suzuka is along these lines but the mid speed section is too short to be effective. The long fast right hander in COTA, and the long left hander in Sochi are good places to set up a pass if only the straight after was just a little longer, or the preceding turn had a longer slower radius. The fact they end in mid speed corners with very little mid corner section 90 degree ish turn ruins any passing opportunity.

Silverstone has these types of turns, and lo and behold even though it's hard to follow there, people could race.

Putting chicanes at the end of straights is just weak design, once they removed the Singapore sling, you saw passing there.

The defunct Indian GP had a very nice corner in this style and drivers were able to follow(except for sector 3), China has turns like this as well.

[johnny comelately]

Fernando Alonso comments at about the 2 minute mark
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CdOeIB3O7k

[keithcollantine]

Chicanes are an unavoidable necessity for making some tracks safe/practical for modern competition.

But there's no way new-build circuits should have slow chicanes. Yas Marina, for example, is an absolute travesty.