Would You Prefer The Old Hockenheim Back?

[JHS18 0]

4) There is a chance that a car going airborne may land in the forest. That outcome hardly ends well. Formula One cars are not designed to be able to cope with hitting trees at all angles, even on the vertical plane. I believe I do not have to remind you all of Jim Clark's fate. True, cars have become safer but I'd rather not take the risk with drivers head sticking out of an open c-pit.

But that can, and has, happened in the past at Le Mans too. Heck, the worst tragedy in the history of any motorsport (in terms of number of spectators killed) happened at Le Mans, yet they still race there.

My point is that it is hard to make an argument not to race on a particular track for a particular reason, because chance are that argument can be made about any number of other tracks that ARE still being used.

I think there is an argument that Formula One has become a little too risk averse in recent times. Think of all the times recently when it has rained where a session has been red flagged, or a race is started behind the safety car or whatever. Then think of some of the races in the past that have taken place in atrocious conditions, and there seems to have been a big change.

I get that they want to improve safety, and that's great, I have no problems with it. But in that particular example, it does seem to be a bit unnecessary.

[Emmcee 0]

Cars getting air born can happen anywhere, I think it sucks its gone. It was one of few traditional circuits left. And instead of spending the money to totally give it a face lift, iam sure they could have spent it to spruce the circuit up to modern standards. With decent asphalt run of areas and to wide the actual circuit, so of a car does retire it's not so close to the racing line. No matter what story the say was the reason for the reconstruction, I still know it makes not sense at all. Just a circuit along with imola I sadly miss.

[Jem of the Shire 0]

Wikipedia mentions a former Merc employee invading the track in the straight in 1999 (I don't recall the event, although I recall a streaker in the motordrom section).

Actually I believe it was 2000, DC was looking good for a win and that track-invader messed it all up!

[Emmcee 0]

Same dude at the British gp a few years later.

[Massa 0]

I still remember the old track. The main issues with the straights are as I remember:

1) The straights were very long, which in itself is not a problem as many of you point out. However it helps if you imagine the scenario a few years back involving Mark Webber and Heikki Kovalainen and the aerial display that ensued in the following points

2) The straights were narrow with just a grassy area with a width of around 3-4 meters on the right side for most of the straights. In case of cars retiring in said areas, the marshalls will be exposed to much risk because of the width and also because it will take a long time to remove the car.

3) The forest happens to be a protected forest. Any effort to upgrade the track will inevitably include a significant amount of deforestation, which is bound to be a political issue. And the fact that the forest is there makes it difficult for recovery of vehicles stopped by the side. The stewards may have to deploy safety cars to ensure that recovery can be done safely.

4) There is a chance that a car going airborne may land in the forest. That outcome hardly ends well. Formula One cars are not designed to be able to cope with hitting trees at all angles, even on the vertical plane. I believe I do not have to remind you all of Jim Clark's fate. True, cars have become safer but I'd rather not take the risk with drivers head sticking out of an open c-pit.

5) Commercial value: For much of the old track, the action is invisible to crowds except in certain areas with grandstands. For the crowds on track much of the action would have happened before they can see it (yeah, its a minor point I agree)

On a strictly F1 note regarding the old configuration, the track would necessitate a lower downforce setup, which will increase speeds but also making it easier for things to go wrong due to lower grip levels.

Hockenheim was in a so-so financial situation at the time the decision had to be made (during the schumi era), so I guess the steps they took were logical and would cause minimal impact while affording higher safety standards. To allow the races to be held there in the first place rather than keeping some romantic and historical notion. At the time also, safety improvements were coming in leaps and bounds on all tracks, getting stricter year on year. Perhaps the powers that be decided that it would be unfeasible to keep the old layout.

If I remember correctly, that is..

Good post.

But that can, and has, happened in the past at Le Mans too. Heck, the worst tragedy in the history of any motorsport (in terms of number of spectators killed) happened at Le Mans, yet they still race there.

My point is that it is hard to make an argument not to race on a particular track for a particular reason, because chance are that argument can be made about any number of other tracks that ARE still being used.

I think there is an argument that Formula One has become a little too risk averse in recent times. Think of all the times recently when it has rained where a session has been red flagged, or a race is started behind the safety car or whatever. Then think of some of the races in the past that have taken place in atrocious conditions, and there seems to have been a big change.

I get that they want to improve safety, and that's great, I have no problems with it. But in that particular example, it does seem to be a bit unnecessary.

It's not logical to say, "it could happen there, so let's allow it to happen here."

It is only logical to say, "it could happen there, so let's see what we can do to lower the chance of it happening there, and lower the potential for injury if it does happen there."

Yes, Andrés is right, perhaps it is "eliminating bees," but if you reintroduce bees, you still made things worse.

You are right that other tracks are dangerous. We've discussed that. It doesn't mean you should be adding more dangerous tracks or adding old dangerous tracks. It means you need to now find a way to address those other dangerous tracks and continue to make things safer. Track layout will always play a massive role in safety, and it's something that can be changed to have a big impact on that. You can only do so much to the car and the drivers' equipment.

Yes, things change. That's called progress. The cars outgrow certain things, and attitudes change over time. That's part of it. They had legal traction control, for example, when they raced in atrocious conditions back in the early-to-mid-2000s. Not that that's the only factor here, but the point is, the cars change, and the attitudes change. What's the point in running a demo derby? I watched the 2001 Malaysia race the other day. These brave, glorious men who weren't scared of the wet were going off, off, off with every opportunity they had. Barrichello so loyally even followed Schumacher through a gravel trap. There's just no point in running the race like that. You hear fans complaining about a lottery, well, there's your lottery...as much as you can argue about these heroes in the wet, you can also say that racing in the wet is like the Spanish Grand Prix...drivers being very, very conservative and not pushing...but of course, the astute race viewer observes that every race is not about running as fast as possible...it's actually about winning the race as slowly as possible.

The day being risk-averse is an inherently bad thing will be a shocking day for me. I know of this guy in America who really, really wanted to play up the romantic notions of brave men doing unthinkable feats and defying death. The problem is, they didn't defy death; one died in a gruesome wreck. This was the 2011 IndyCar Series. They went to a track that was not suited to the cars (but, like Hockenheim, this track wasn't particularly vicious...I mean, they raced and still race other 1.5-mile, banked ovals...hmm...sounds like an argument I've heard...), they turned up the engines a bit (as it was the last race for them) to add some more speed, they started a record-high field of cars, and had initially planned to have drivers who had never driven anything remotely like an IndyCar compete for $5,000,000 if they could win. That marketing plan, the marketing plan about "brave" drivers and about "risk" killed, plain and simple. It's killed in the X Games, too.

Risk isn't pretty. If you take away our need to believe that people we see on TV are heroes, we wouldn't need the risk. But we're so hung up on trying to find meaning in F1, and trying to glorify the people who do F1 in our endlessly insecure justification of what we like to do on Sunday that we need the risk or else our co-workers will ask us, "yeah, what's the point," as if there were a point to football or game shows or True Life reruns on MTV.

But our risky hero, Regan Smith, putting it all on the line just to try to win the race, sends dozens of fans to a hospital and seems less like the brave man we wished would be our savior and more like a callous ***hole in his interview after the accident. Our risky hero leaves NASCAR with lawsuits against it and a harsh reaction from the public and the media, temporarily, at least, derailing NASCAR's fight to be "normal" and not seen as some backwards, redneck, foolish waste of time.

The "rewards" of risk in auto racing boil down to this: someone wins and it's exciting. I have to tell you, even in this "sanitized" era, someone still wins and I, personally, and millions of others worldwide, apparently, still find that exciting. The only other "reward" is that you get to feel like the drivers are extraordinary people when, really, they're not. Defying death is hardly extraordinary when every second of our lives is cheating death, and when they immerse themselves in risk not for others, but really just to win a race for themselves and nothing more. Don't confuse that with "F1 drivers are bad people;" they aren't. They're just not heroes. There are fewer heroes in this world than we want to believe...so we add some kind of risk to try to tell ourselves we have tons...

I'm sorry for taking a harmless thread and turning it into this.

[Rainmaster 7]

Shadow's post was helpful. I still favour Eric's take on all this.

Just stepping back from the actual details and looking at the whole "other tracks are the same/have problems" argument, it doesn't help at all. That's because the minute you accept a track is unsuitable in some way (in Hock's case, seemingly because of a combination of the layout and a number of other issues related to that), then the relevance of the comparative safety of other tracks doesn't matter. Now you may disagree on the facts of those issues and they may be arguable in this case, but the minute you do accept it is unsuitable for some reason or combination of reasons, then the suitability of other tracks isn't relevant at all, at least in a discussion about safety.

The only way a comparison to tracks still on the calendar would be helpful would be as a way to 1) Try to understand the reasoning for the track being dropped, i.e. "there are more dangerous tracks than Old Hock, so perhaps the race was not actually dropped for safety reasons" (which I think was sort of where Andres was going). But this line of thinking isn't relevant to a discussion on safety. It's relevant to a discussion on the reasons the FIA/FOM decides to drop tracks and whether they choose the right reasons or the right reasons in this case. It may well be the case that they don't always make good decisions in that regard, but that isn't relevant if you already agreed the Old Hock was not suitable on safety grounds. Once you agree on that, it doesn't matter if the track was actually dropped/modified due to commercial reasons, local politics or because Bernie heard it in a dream, you still haven't got a good argument to bring it back because you already said you didn't think it was suitable. Point is, the reason for the decision about Old Hockenheim on the part of the FIA/FOM doesn't become relevant to an objective discussion on the actual safety of the track and whether it should have stayed on safety grounds.

Or, 2) Make an argument that other tracks should also be dropped/improved by the FIA, e.g. Le Mans, Monza, Monaco, etc (as described by Eric). It would be perfectly reasonable to say that you think Old Hock may have had some safety issues, but then suggest other tracks have worse issues. But the conclusion of that argument is not "bring back Old Hock", it's "we need to do something about the other circuits". Unless you believe safety issues are...well...not important. In which case you are on the wrong side of history. Of course, not everybody might agree that tracks like Monza actually suffer from the same issues as the Old Hockenheim. Again, we can disagree on the facts.

Both of those sorts of reasoning would make sense. But what would not make sense is the argument that says "other tracks have similar problems", therefore, bring back that other track that I agree is unsuitable. That makes no sense at all.