Ross Brawn says a push to move away from an era of “Mickey Mouse” street tracks was a key factor in designing the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix layout.
Last month, organisers revealed a bold design for the Jeddah Street Circuit, which will be the second-longest on the Formula 1 calendar after Spa-Francorchamps and the second-fastest after Monza, with a predicted average speed of 250kph.
Certainly, the Saudi circuit is chalk and cheese compared to possibly every other city track which F1 has raced on, and Brawn admits that was entirely intentional.
“We’ve been working very closely with [Hermann] Tilke,” said the F1 motorsport boss via Formula1.com. “What we want to see is a race circuit, we don’t want Mickey Mouse circuits.
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“We don’t want those old classic street circuits with 90-degree turns. We want fast sweeping circuits, circuits which are going to challenge the drivers – and they are going to love it – and we want circuits where we can have wheel-to-wheel racing.
“This is a circuit which is utilising some of the existing infrastructure, but we’ve been lucky in that there have been areas where we have been able to build from scratch, so we’ve been able to build some really exciting parts of the circuit.
“There are some great sweeping corners and at one end, there will be a 180-degree corner with a moderate amount of banking, so it will be a high G-load and high stress for the drivers.”
With only a couple of corners where speeds will be 100mph or lower, a question many had after seeing the layout is ‘where will drivers overtake?’.
But Brawn is confident that passing will be possible in Jeddah, only it will be a different type of passing to what F1 has become accustomed to.
“You want great racing, you don’t just want to tick the box of there’s a long straight with a hairpin at the end and you turn the DRS on and you overtake,” he explained. “That’s an overtake, but it doesn’t turn us on does it?
“What you want is wheel to wheel action. You want the driver behind to get close enough that he can take the line in the corner. You want complexes of corners where one driver can get on the inside of another initially, force him out on the line, and then they get to the next corner and fight it out – that to me is racing. That is wheel to wheel. That’s proper overtaking.
“So we make that distinction between just statistics – which aren’t really the key thing – and the quality of the racing and the quality of overtaking. This circuit has been designed to have the quality of overtaking.”
On Sunday, construction of the circuit began in Jeddah with a groundbreaking ceremony attended by multiple Saudi officials.
“Today marks a historic moment for Saudis and all motorsports fans around the world with the ground-breaking of the Jeddah Formula One Circuit,” said HRH Prince Khalid Bin Sultan Al Faisal, President of the Saudi Automobile & Motorsport Federation (SAMF).
“This is the opening of a bright new page in the history of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as the city of Jeddah, the Pride of the Red Sea, will host this global event next December and the eyes of the world will be on us as Jeddah becomes the focal point for race fans across the globe.
“We seek to build a circuit and host a race that is a differentiator in the world of Formula 1, one that distinguishes us from others by presenting a race that will remain in the memories of F1 fans for years to come.
“Also, an event that meets the aspirations and creates pride for the citizens of our beloved Kingdom while delivering interest and benefits for the community of Jeddah.”