Best and worst F1 circuits (current)

[U700]

Which tracks do you like and which do you disslike?
Lets put say a top 3.

Best:
Spa
Montreal
Catalunya

Worst:
Apart from Turkey most of Tilke's circuits are rubbish
China
Bahrain
Yas Marina

 

[paulmac2k9]

Best:

Spa
Istanbull
Yas Marina

Worst:

Monaco
Valencia
Bahrain

These are from a not very big F1 fan mind..

 

[freight48]

Best:
Montreal
Brazil
Suzuka

Worst:
Singapore
Yas Marina
Valencia

 

[TheBook]

Best: Spa, Circuit de Giles Villeneuve, Monaco

Worst: Catalunya, Hungaroring, Bahrain

 

[CheersMate]

Best:
Spa
Hockenheim (old circuit)
Suzuka
Imola
Interlagos

Worst:
Valencia
Fuji
Yas Marina

I would love to see a street circuit in the US again. Like Phoenix, Detroit and Dallas.

 

[TDZdave]

BEST,
spa, one of the worlds greatest circuits, both a fan and driver favorite,
monaco, the race is boring, but its a tricky track with so much history,
interlagos, get it right, and you love it, get it wrong, your slow and hate,

WORST,
all tilke circuits!!!!! no exemptions!!!! includes tracks he has tampered with as well!!!
albert park, seriously, F1 should have stayed in adelaide,
suzuka, yes its a drivers challenge, but its been done to death,

preferred,
AUS GP, back in adelaide, or give the driver a fright and send the to Bathurst,
AUSTRIAN GP, back at the A1 ring, always gave good wheel to wheel racing,
FRENCH GP, magny cours, not the biggest or fastest, but also gave good racing,
JAPAN GP, Fuji, or T1 circuit aida, anything better then suzuka,
SAN MARINO GP, its the last place of ayrton senna, he did love the track,

 

[Liquid]

BEST,
spa, one of the worlds greatest circuits, both a fan and driver favorite,
monaco, the race is boring, but its a tricky track with so much history,
interlagos, get it right, and you love it, get it wrong, your slow and hate

I'm with you.

WORST,
all tilke circuits!!!!! no exemptions!!!! includes tracks he has tampered with as well!!!

It's not always his fault that his tracks are characteristically safe and boring. He has to design his tracks within some strict rules. Plus, Sepang is great.

albert park, seriously, F1 should have stayed in adelaide,

I like Adelaide, but there's nothing wrong with Albert Park.

suzuka, yes its a drivers challenge, but its been done to death,

Same could be said about Spa, Monza or the Nordschleife.

preferred,
AUS GP, back in adelaide,

£££. Albert Park is low on cash but I don't think Adelaide is that rich to be honest.

or give the driver a fright and send the to Bathurst,

As much as I would love to see it, the track is too bumpy given the low ride height of F1 cars.

AUSTRIAN GP, back at the A1 ring, always gave good wheel to wheel racing,

The A1 Ring? You mean that Tilke track? Seems you're at odds with your previous statement.

FRENCH GP, magny cours, not the biggest or fastest, but also gave good racing,

No it didn't. 1999 was an exception and that was down to the weather.

JAPAN GP, Fuji,

Personally no.

or T1 circuit aida,

God no.

SAN MARINO GP, its the last place of ayrton senna, he did love the track,

This is a meaningless statement. Let's go back to the banking at Monza because von Trips died there. Or Zandvoort, remember Roger Williamson?

 

[avens]

First thing is to distinguish classic versions and the current ones. Nowadays there are very few classic circuits with a close enough configuration to how they were in their golden days, losing its flow and characteristic corners, or even almost completely re-done.
The circuits that only count are the current version since the old layouts are not coming back.

Secondly, no matter if it produces great races or great revenue (which aren't tied up) some circuits simply have to be in F1 because of their "classic" condition or are a strategic spot to F1.

With that said, the most interesting question is which.....5 tracks simply should always be in F1 no matter what, then which 5 are worthless and should be out of it, whether currently on F1 or not.


edit: my top5 classics are (in no particular order) monaco, brazil, suzuka, monza and spa. I know spa is great and all but it's not doing well recently, so maybe you can remove that one from the list no matter what drivers and some fans might think (it is a business after all, same with silverstone).

5 that should be out are valencia (not rotating every 2 years, just out and hopefully destroyed), new hockenheim (could be great if cars were faster but right now it's awful), korea (awful and literally no one cares about the track nor f1 going there in comparison to others....besides gangnam style), bahrain (has potential but not with the current safe layout regulations) and of course vegas, meaning that particular track and other worthless street circuits.
Catalunya is in because it is a test track, and I thought about new Fuji to never come back but the Japanese crowd is awesome so Japan could perfectly have 2 races (disregard the kobayashi avatar I'm not japanese lol).

 

[cgr-10]

My favourite races to watch (generally because of the atmosphere, surroundings, and the track itself) are:

Marina Bay - Love the night atmosphere/excitement and the facotring in of a safety car period into race strategy.
Monaco - Well, it's Monaco.
Montreal - Brilliant circuit, always seems to produce a good race.

Close behind would be Albert Park, Sepang, Spa and Interlagos.

I don't massively dislike any F1 venue, although I find Hungary quite boring if I had to choose one.

 

[Lizard]

Best 3 for me.

Montreal.
Singapore. (Am I the only one?)
Spa.

Close behind.
Albert park.
Monaco.
Suzuka. (Hate to drive it on games but good races.)
Brazil.


Worst 3.
Catalunya
Valencia.
Abu Dahbi.

 

[cgr-10]

Singapore. (Am I the only one?)

Nope, I really enjoy it. Partly due to the fact it's like a night-time/Asian version of Monaco, with all the excitement that that brings to the weekend. It always throws up some surprises (usually crashes, thinking about it) and the track isn't as dull as some of the other new circuits in my opinion.

 

[Lizard]

I would love to see a street circuit in the US again. Like Phoenix, Detroit and Dallas.

You are in luck next year.

 

[ZEROX]

Top 3. Well, that's tough.

Best

1.Suzuka
= Who needs DRS or KERS on this circuit. Real skill are needed.

2.Sepang
= Okay, first of all i'm not biased just because it's situated near me. The track itself pushes the car plus the blazing hot weather and sometimes the playful one spice up the race.

3.Spa and Monaco(i've to)
= Hey, who doesn't. Classic track, the weather, the balance circuit. What's more you can get. As for Monaco, seeing the driver tip-toeing highspeed close to the barrier, it was breathtaking.

Worst

1.Valencia
= Hell yes, the only GP that's not bored to watch are this year's. Other than that, i rather sleep. Pretty long track but too much straight and sharp corner. Not to mention not really challenging because of the wide track.

2.Bahrain
=Too safe. Not challenging enough. Too wide.

3.Yas Marina
= I love the circuit. It's beautiful! but it lacks of challenging part. That was all.

OTHERS:
Other track are balanced. Nor loved or hated. New track like Austin looks boring though i hope this is wrong and i am really looking forward for New Jersey street circuit. It really looks convincing to me especially the flat out, tight part. *A*

This all based imo.

 

[ENTERSANDMAN13]

Best=

Silverstone - Old & New, a really diverse track that really show's what the F1 cars can do.

Spa - Its Spa.

Old Hockenheim - I just love it.

Worst=

Bahrain, BORING and too many runoffs!

Valencia, hardly any good to watch races there (excluding this year). Although i do like racing there (sims).

Korea, it just doesn't flow well for me.

 

[Pezzarinho17]

Best
Spa
Singapore
Suzuka

Worst
Bahrain
Valencia
Catalunya

 

[C6.R]

Best :
Spa Francorchamps
Hockenheimring
Monza
Suzuka
Circuit de Gilles villeneuve

Worst :
Singapore
Korea
Sepang

 

[Jimlaad43]

Best
Silverstone
Spa
Montreal
Hockenheim
Interlagos

Worst
Sakhir
Yas Marina
Valencia
Hungaroring
Catalunya

 

[nealcropper]

Best

Spa
Silverstone
Monaco

Worst

Suzuka
Valencia
Albert Park

 

[zippy_the_cat]

Best: Spa, Suzuka, Montreal. The recent delete-tracks thread got this right.

Worst: Valencia, despite the quality of this year's race. Korea's right up there too, along with Abu Dhabi. Korea maybe could work its way out of the discussion if organizers improved the quality of the surroundings. This year you could see how hard the drivers had to work in the second and third sectors.

 

[Tom]

Best:
Albert Park
Sepang
Monaco
Silverstone
Montreal
Spa
Interlagos

Worst:
Bahrain
Singapore
Valencia
Korea
Abu Dhabi

 

[Jimlaad43]

Suzuka seems to be in both best and worst tracks consistently.
Really, it is a racers track rather than a racing track. Kind of depends on your opinion of a good circuit.

 

[zippy_the_cat]

This is a meaningless statement. Let's go back to the banking at Monza because von Trips died there. Or Zandvoort, remember Roger Williamson?

I thought von Trips bought it at the Parabolica.

Imola's a different, more neutered track than it was in 1994. Tamburello's now a chicane, remember.

 

[Liquid]

I thought von Trips bought it at the Parabolica.

Spot on, but the sides of the track at the time was banking. von Trips' car flew up the grass banks and into the crowd.

Coincidentally, I think the actual banking at Monza was retired after that race.

 

[zippy_the_cat]

Suzuka seems to be in both best and worst tracks consistently.
Really, it is a racers track rather than a racing track. Kind of depends on your opinion of a good circuit.

For my money Suzuka is the toughest track in GT5, bar none including the Nordschliefe.

 

[KinLM]

Suzuka seems to be in both best and worst tracks consistently.
Really, it is a racers track rather than a racing track. Kind of depends on your opinion of a good circuit.

Exactly, I love the place because I'm such a technical driver, but others just hate it.

Anyways, back on topic.

Good:
Monza
Albert Park
Monaco
Catalunya
Valencia
Singapore
Hungary
Spa
Montreal
(Hopefully Austin will be good, it's in my home state of Texas)

Bad;
Malaysia
Turkey
India
Korea
China
Sakhir

Apparently all of these "bad" ones (or most of them) were designed by the same person, so possibly that has something to do with it..? Maybe Bernie and I just don't agree on what makes a track good.

 

[Ardius]

For my money Suzuka is the toughest track in GT5, bar none including the Nordschliefe.

I actually think Le Mans is a really tough track to hammer the laptime out of. I seem to do pretty well in races there but I always find it a track that really demands a lot technically, especially from the setup of the car.

I find Suzuka very easy to get the laptime from. Even with cars that don't really handle so well I find it easy to find the absolute limit. As I've said in other threads, I've spent so many laps around there in GT5 Prologue that I know every inch of it in a lot of different cars. It just flows extremely well and most of the braking points are pretty similar between cars.
It also gives a natural read on car handling - you know what to expect with an oversteer-prone car and what to expect with an understeer-prone car. You know which corners will require different lines and inputs. There isn't really any awkward corners. You can also find chunks of laptime and really set up some great overtakes with corners like Dunlop, Degner and Spoon.

I'd say my least favourite current circuit is Korea as it has no flow..and no fun. In the games I seem to do ok there and managed to learn the best lines. But its just so awkward, its not even like Fuji where it presents multiple lines in very technical corners - instead it just present odd lines, speeds and braking points. It also feels very irritating to set the gearbox properly without ending up shifting at annoying points thanks to the strange lines and braking points.
It doesn't even generate much excitement with its compromises on setup like say Monza or Spa.

I never feel satisfied with any lap at Korea. Its not like the problem is just awkward corners - there's plenty of those at other tracks. The problem is there are too many of them combined together, there is no flow from one to the next, it just feels completely random.

 

[crooky369]

Best:

Melbourne
Monaco
Spa
Monza
Suzuka
Interlagos

Worst:

Korea
Barcelona
Valencia
Singapore
Abu Dhabi
India

 

[takatasan]

Best:
Monaco
Montreal
Suzuka
Spa
Australia
Monza
Hungary

Worst:
Velencia
Bahrain
Singapore

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Best
- Interlagos
- Silverstone
- Suzuka
- Sepang

Worst
- Bahrain
- Barcelona
- Valencia

Over-rated
- Spa
- Monza
- Monaco

Under-rated
- Korea
- Hockenheim
- Shanghai

 

[Shoe67]

Best:
Monaco
Spa
Suzuka

Worst:
Shanghai
Monza
Silverstone