Track designer Hermann Tilke is confident that his revisions to the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City will prove to be successful and will be good for spectators.
The track, which last hosted an F1 race in 1992, is being substantially rebuilt for the return of the GP on November 1. However, Tilke says he has tried to retain its character.
“There will be a new pit and paddock,” he told this writer. “But we don’t have so much space. And then after the straight we did some new corners, because this is a highlight for the spectators. We’re moving the ‘snake’, the very fast corners, to the inside. We’re almost copying it, because it was successful, but we had no safety, no run-off. And there is a big concert stadium, and we’ll lead the cars through the stadium. Of course it’s slow, but it’s for the spectators, and there will be action there.”
Meanwhile Tilke countered criticism of the layout of the Baku street track in Azerbaijan, which will join the F1 calendar in 2016. The German insists that the real circuit will be much more exciting than the map issued a few months ago might suggest, due to elevation changes and so on.
“You have to see it in three dimensions, you cannot see in those pictures. It goes really uphill to the old city, it follows the city wall from the 1200s, and it will be really exciting. It’s one hundred per cent a temporary circuit, all existing roads. We’ll refurbish some of them, but not all.
“It’s a very fast track. It’s an absolutely different challenge, and the track is different from every city track in the world. It will be different from Monaco, different from Singapore, it will be completely outstanding.”
Adam Cooper F1 