As part of an €80 million overhaul of the F1 Belgian Grand Prix venue, major changes have been made to improve safety at Eau Rouge and some other corners.
and famously being so famous in F1, the circuit was determined not to change its character through works.
Jarno Zaffelli, founder of Dromo Circuit Design, responsible for Spa changes, said the high-speed challenge at Eau Rouge has not been canceled despite the rearrangement of the barriers.
He thinks the resurfacing of key parts of the track – especially through the Eau Rouge/Raidillon complex – means the track is faster than before, so F1’s slower 2022-generation machinery could be the same as last year’s The pace is not far off.
Talking about how the F1 car will find the new Spa, Zaffelli said: “It will be a flat corner and it will provide opportunities. The car will feel the difference between the new asphalt and the old one .
“If we look at the GT car at the 24 Hours of Spa, the pole position is 1.7 seconds faster than the year before.
“We know that this year’s F1 cars are generally slower than 2021, so there’s not going to be a huge gap here.”
The speed boost is that Dromo uses a more modern As a result of the asphalt material, much of Spa was laid decades ago.
“The last time the track was laid was 20 years ago,” he said. “The performance of race cars and motorcycles has greatly improved since then. The technology available for asphalt materials and paving equipment has also changed dramatically.
“Dromo’s experience and expertise A specific hybrid design is actually developed for each circuit. ”
Track overview
Photo by Erik Junius
Having gone to make sure the character Eau Rouge isn’t ruined, Zaffelli says Dromo worked on over 20 different concepts before settling on the final version.
“In the design and further development, we took into account new regulations and new tires,” he added. “We have over 20 iterations of the Eau Rouge. We spent a few days with professional drivers in an in-house simulator to get their feedback.
“We spent two full days at the Vi-Grade Simulation Centre with professional drivers, supervised by Thierry Boutsen and Emanuele Pirro. Then between October and November 2021, Fine-tuned work with Marco Bonanomi in simulators of F1 and GT cars to get their feedback.
“This work has helped us a lot in choosing the final design and then in the 2022 season The work carried out in the first few months was previously submitted to the FIA Touring Committee. Additionally, we did an internal analysis of the circuit, performed a lidar scan of the area, and then performed a full analysis to finalize all the details. ”
