Racing Circuits Factbook Rob Semmeling Racing Circuits Factbook Page 2 CONTENTS Introduction 4 First 5 Oldest 15 Newest 16 Ovals & Bankings 22 Fastest 35 Longest 44 Shortest 48 Width 50 Corners 50 Elevation Change 53 Most 55 Location 55 Eight-Shaped Circuits 55 Street Circuits 56 Airfield Circuits 65 Dedicated Circuits 67 Longest Straightaways 72 Racing Circuits Factbook Page 3 Formula 1 Circuits 74 Formula 1 Circuits Fast Facts 77 MotoGP Circuits 78 IndyCar Series Circuits 81 IMSA SportsCar Championship Circuits 82 World Circuits Survey 83 Copyright © Rob Semmeling 2010-2016 / all rights reserved www.wegcircuits.nl Cover Photography © Raphaël Belly Racing Circuits Factbook Page 4 Introduction The Racing Circuits Factbook is a collection of various facts and figures about motor racing circuits worldwide. I believe it is the most comprehensive and accurate you will find anywhere. However, although I have tried to make sure the information presented here is as correct and accurate as possible, some reservation is always necessary. Research is continuously progressing and may lead to new findings. Website In addition to the Racing Circuits Factbook file you are viewing, my website www.wegcircuits.nl offers several further downloadable pdf-files: theRennen! Races! Vitesse! pdf details over 700 racing circuits in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Austria, and also contains notes on Luxembourg and Switzerland. The American Road Courses pdf-documents lists nearly 160 road courses of past and present in the United States and Canada. These files are the most comprehensive and accurate sources for racing circuits in said countries. My website also lists nearly 5000 dates of motorcycle road races in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Luxembourg and Switzerland, allowing you to see exactly when many of the motorcycle circuits listed in the Rennen! Races! Vitesse! document were used. The Auto Races Index pdf-file lists the dates of automobile races in said countries. Pdf-files are best viewed with the latest version of Adobe Reader, which is freely available for download from Adobe's website. Comments, corrections, additions and questions are of course welcome via e-mail. Copyright © Rob Semmeling / all rights reserved Contact: robsemmeling (at) email (dot) com Website: www.wegcircuits.nl Note For anyone with a website about racing circuits of their own: please do not copy information from this file. Instead, link to my web- site where people will be able to download the original file and read about the circuits themselves from the original source. Please also do not link to this pdf-file directly, but rather please link simply to www.wegcircuits.nl - thanks. Updates Original file uploaded on 18 August 2009 New and improved version uploaded on 1 November 2010 New and improved version uploaded on 8 May 2011 Latest update of this file: 30 November 2016 30/11/2016: updated the Formula 1 Circuits and MotoGP Circuits sections (pages 75-80). 08/10/2016: various updates in the Newest section (pages 20-21). 27/08/2016: various small updates here and there. 18/06/2016: various updates throughout. 11/06/2016: updated the Isle of Man lap records (page 42). 14/05/2016: updated the IndyCar schedule (page 81). 01/05/2016: updated the Newest section (pages 20-21), the IndyCar Circuits section (page 81) and the World Circuits Survey (pages 83-94). Racing Circuits Factbook Page 5 First The first-ever racing circuit – a closed course as opposed to a course running from A to B – was the one-mile dirt oval of the Rhode Island State Fair Park, located at Narragansett Park in Cranston, Rhode Island, United States. It was first used for auto racing on Monday 7 September 1896. The course was originally a horse racing track, and numerous similar dirt ovals, typically one mile in length, were used for racing in the United States from the early 1900s onwards. Incidentally, the historic Narragansett Park oval was paved with asphalt in 1915, which marked the first time this material was used to pave a racing circuit in the United States. The New York Times of 13 August wrote the rebuilt cost over 225,000 dollars and that "the value of asphalt for speedways and roadways will be tested when the new one-mile automobile race track (...) is opened on September 18 with a 100-mile feature contest." The newly-asphalted course had banked corners and reportedly last operated on 4 August 1923. The site is nowadays a residential area, with Fiat Avenue roughly following the outline of the old track. It should be noted that the 1878 road race for steam-powered vehicles over 201 miles between Green Bay and Madison in Wisconsin, United States included a special stage, where the remaining two participants had to lap a one-mile sprint against each other on the horse racing oval at the Oshkosh Fairgrounds in Oshkosh, Wisconsin on Saturday 20 July 1878. This is the first-ever recorded closed-course motor race - provided steam racing is taken into account of course. The first-ever race on anon-oval racing circuit is believed to have been the Course de Périgueux, which was held in the Dordogne region in south-west France on Sunday 1 May 1898 (or Monday 2 May according to some sources). The race was over one lap of a course that began in Périgueux and looped via Mussidan, Bergerac and Le Bugue before heading back again. The exact length of the circuit is unclear, with various sources reporting it as 145, 171.8 and 178.8 km. The race was won by a Panhard-driver named Leys, but sadly marred by the fatal crash of Marquis de Montaignac. The Course du Catalogue was a race over two laps of a 72.41 km / 45 mi long triangular course over closed public roads at Melun near Paris in France, held on Sunday 18 February 1900. The winner was Panhard-driver Léonce Girardot. The first major, international race over a closed course was the Circuit des Ardennes in Belgium, which was organised on a variety of circuits in the southern province of Luxembourg between 1902 and 1907, as detailed below. Further details about each circuit can be found in the Rennen! Races! Vitesse! pdf-file, available for download from my website www.wegcircuits.nl. Date Category Circuit Length Race Distance Winner 1902 (1) 31 July Automobiles & Voiturettes Bastogne 85.4 km 6 laps = 512.4 km Charles Jarrott (Panhard) 31 July Motorcycles Bastogne 85.4 km 2 laps = 170.8 km 1903 (2) 22 June Automobiles Bastogne 85.4 km 6 laps = 512.4 km Pierre de Crawhez (Panhard) 23 June Voiturettes & Motorcycles Arlon 136 km 2 laps = 272.0 km 1904 (3) 24 July Voiturettes & Motorcycles Arlon 48 km 5 laps = 240.0 km 25 July Automobiles Bastogne 118 km 5 laps = 590.0 km George Heath (Panhard) 1905 (4) 5 August Voiturettes & Motorcycles Arlon 40.24 km 5 laps = 201.2 km 7 August Automobiles Bastogne 120 km 5 laps = 600.0 km Victor Hémery (Darracq) 1906 (5) 13 August Automobiles Bastogne 85.714 km 7 laps = 600.0 km Arthur Duray (Loraine-Dietrich) 14 August Automobiles (Coupe de Liedekerke) Bastogne 85.714 km 5 laps = 428.6 km Wilhelm (Metallurgique) 9 September Motorcycles (Vitesse) Neufchâteau 75 km 3 laps = 225.0 km 9 September Motorcycles (Touring) Neufchâteau 75 km 2 laps = 150.0 km 1907 (6) 25 July Automobiles (Kaiserpreis) Bastogne 85.714 km 7 laps = 600.0 km Moore Brabazon (Minerva) 26 July Motorcycles Bastogne 85.714 km 2 laps = 171.4 km 27 July Automobiles (Grand Prix) Bastogne 85.714 km 7 laps = 600.0 km Pierre de Caters (Mercedes) 27 July Automobiles (Coupe de Liedekerke) Bastogne 85.714 km 6 laps = 514.9 km Porlier (Minerva) Circuit des Ardennes (1902-1907) Racing Circuits Factbook Page 6 The firstpurpose-built racing circuit is often believed to have been Brooklands, near Weybridge, England. The facility opened on 17 June 1907. The concrete course had two banked curves and measured exactly 2 miles and 1350 yards on the centre line, which corresponds to 2.767 mi or 4.452 km. It had a width of 100 feet or just over thirty metres. However, while Brooklands was certainly the firstpaved purpose-built course, it was not the first overall. At least two unpaved circuits had already been constructed, in Australia and the United States, respectively. Aspendale Park Racecourse in Aspendale, a town approximately 25 km south-east of Melbourne, Australia, opened as a horse racing track in 1891. In late 1905, owner James Robert Crooke began construction of a new course, laid inside the existing horse track, "with a view to promoting racing among motor cars," as The Advertiser newspaper reported. Close to a mile in length, it had slightly banked curves and a gravel surface of crushed cement. The first event on the circuit, titled Aspendale Motor Race Meeting, took place on Monday 29 January 1906, but according to the Advertiser "the proceedings did not prove very interesting," although other newspapers disagreed. Most sources claim the circuit was abandoned after the opening meeting, but in fact there was at least one further event, organised by the Automobile Club of Victoria. This was scheduled for Monday 5 and Wednesday 7 November 1906, but The Argus newspaper wrote that "heavy rains (...) thoroughly soaked the special banked motor track" and so the racing was rescheduled for Wednesday 7 and Friday 9 November. No further meetings on the gravel course are known. In the United States, the first purpose-built circuit is claimed to have been Lakeside Inn Speedway in Lakeside, about twenty miles north-east of San Diego, California.