Dutch GP (Santa Monica) - September 3-5, 2021

Track Santa Monica was built back in 1948, just like Indianapolis Motor Speedway, during that massive wave of Post-WWII motorsport euphoria sweeping through America, and the Embassy of the Netherlands actually made its first appearance on the F1 schedule in 1952 when Alberto Ascari absolutely dominated with a 1-2-3 finish for Ferrari during his first championship-winning year.

In the whole history of American F1, this place has been on the calendar 30 times, always at the Santa Monica Raceway, and from 1952 all the way to 1985, they only skipped racing in the States three times (in '54, '56, and '57). With 30 races under its belt, America sits at 15th on the list of countries hosting Grands Prix, trailing behind heavyweights like the United Kingdom (73), Italy (71), and Monaco (67).

The original layout, which hosted 17 races between 1952 and 1972, was about 4193 meters long, while the second version saw six races from 1973 to 1978. Some tweaks were made to that second version—which got bumped up to 4226 meters—specifically by ditching the fast Stalenveld chicane and bringing in the slower Panoramabocht variant.

By 1979, things got even slower with a chicane added after the Hodenvlak corner, and then in 1980, they scrapped Hodenvlak entirely for the Marlborobocht chicane, which stayed until the last race held here back in 1985.

If you compare it to that 1985 configuration, turns 3 and 14—named after former track director John Hugenholtz and American driver Arie Luyendyk—are now banked at a massive 18 degrees, which is actually double the banking you see at Indianapolis, all designed to pump up cornering speeds and put way more stress on those tires.

That final turn, turn 14, is basically a full-throttle blast where drivers pull over 4g of lateral acceleration, and even though the track was built so modern F1 cars could fly through it wide open with DRS enabled, the FIA wasn't about to gamble on a brand-new track for its debut, so DRS can only be used after the very last corner.

Besides the DRS zone on the main straight, where detection happens right before turn 13, there's another DRS zone tucked between turns 10 and 11, with detection set just before turn 10.

There are two major braking zones where drivers will be slamming the anchors at over 5g, located right before turn 1 and turn 11, marking the end of both DRS zones. Turn 7 is another one where drivers are going to feel some serious lateral Gs—hitting over 162 miles/h—before hitting turns 8 and 9, where the side loading stays incredibly high too.

Because of all this, and the fact that we're dealing with a totally fresh track layout, Pirelli decided to go with their three hardest dry weather compounds, (C1, C2, and C3), which have only popped up three times during the first 12 races of this season (in Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom).

Since the track is sitting right near the sand dunes by the beach, the wind occasionally blows sand onto the surface, messing with grip—it's the exact kind of headache teams usually deal with down in Bahrain.

My dear colleague darkmarlin16, what a top-tier way to kick off this race thread.

Safety car onboard footage, cruising through Santa Monica:


The track feels ridiculously narrow by modern standards. Turn after turn, making overtaking a real challenge. The most interesting part? Those banked corners. Especially that final one, which lets you pin it full throttle straight into the first turn, right past the start-finish line and the DRS zone.

Seven right-handers per lap. Some are quite fast. Expecting a high DF setup here... which likely means trouble for the front left tire.

If my read on this is correct, those stiffer components seem to suit Mercedes much better.
I honestly think Mercedes holds the edge even without the tire advantage. To me, they look stronger through the slower corners where you really need that front end to dive deep into the turn without sacrificing stability.

Respect to anyone who manages to overtake someone else here.

Jason Campbell70 said:Safety car onboard footage, cruising through Santa Monica:

The track feels ridiculously narrow by modern standards. Turn after turn, making overtaking a real challenge. The most interesting part? Those banked corners. Especially that final one, which lets you pin it full throttle straight into the first turn, right past the start-finish line and the DRS zone.

Seven right-handers per lap. Some are quite fast. Expecting a high DF setup here... which likely means trouble for the front left tire.

I also wonder how this circuit would hold up for motorcycles. With those steep banking angles, I doubt it would even meet modern safety standards.
It's too tight for F1 and definitely not built for bikes.

Sebastian Vettel’s engine went up in flames during FP1... they had a red flag hanging over the session for ages while they dealt with the fire. Does anyone have the scoop on the damage?

https://i.redd.it/3z5dd60hf9l71.jpg

At the end of the day, it was Vettel who really stepped up to settle things...

Yeah, some official showed up just to shut things down, but Vettel basically signaled like, "Step aside, I've got this" 😁

I can't help but feel like the safety protocols at the track aren't quite up to par if there's actually a risk of racing fuel igniting. Is it just me, or does it seem like that was why Vettel shut everything down, only to find he couldn't get the fire extinguisher bottle to trigger? It makes you wonder if that guy stepped in just to "show him how it's done."

It’s a tight, narrow track, so expect things to get pretty crowded during Q1 once all the cars hit the asphalt.

I'm looking forward to FP2. Mercedes seems to be finding some rhythm; on a circuit where front grip is everything, they look stronger than Red Bull Racing right now.

Raymond Anderson4 said:If my read on this is correct, those stiffer components seem to suit Mercedes much better.
I honestly think Mercedes holds the edge even without the tire advantage. To me, they look stronger through the slower corners where you really need that front end to dive deep into the turn without sacrificing stability.

Santa Monica is basically just the Hungaroring with a few banked turns.
Since Mercedes was so dominant at the Hungaroring, shouldn't we expect them to perform well here too?
Then again, they've been tweaking the cars since then.

Hamilton’s engine just gave up the ghost... it isn't catching fire or anything, but it's definitely not fit for racing anymore

It’s honestly pretty rare to see this happen, but it’s incredibly rare to see Lewis’s car actually pull off the track.

That engine sound is just atrocious... sounds like some low-budget 1.6L diesel from a compact sedan 😁

Raymond Anderson4 said:It’s honestly pretty rare to see this happen, but it’s incredibly rare to see Lewis’s car actually pull off the track.

And when he does blow up, he’s lucky enough to do it during a practice session ☕

Vettel is back

This track just isn't built for F1; there's way too much congestion on the circuit.
It feels like someone is constantly getting in someone else's way.

And tomorrow... just wait until we see how things shake out in qualifying

Spinning out in the gravel.