25/07/2019
NEWS STORY
As part of its grand plan to level the playing field, making the racing closer, less predictable and with the chance of more teams challenging for wins, Formula One is seemingly leaving no stone unturned.
Other than a more equal division of the prize pot, the introduction of a budget cap and more standardised parts, new aero rules will also allow the cars to run closer together than is currently possible.
Now, at a time the drivers appear to be giving more input, and with Lewis Hamilton recently criticising some of the tracks the sport currently uses, Ross Brawn believes that the new circuit in Hanoi will prove the blueprint for the future.
"Vietnam will be the first circuit that has been designed from ground up to be a great racing circuit," said the Briton. "We will see how we get on.
"Nothing is ever one hundred percent," he admitted, "and we will probably make one or two mistakes, but it will go a long way towards the sort of circuit we want. And we will learn from Vietnam and do the next one.
"We don't want all circuits to be the same," he added, which is somewhat difficult when one man appears to be responsible for most of the new additions to the calendar in recent years, including Hanoi, Hermann Tilke. "It will be incredibly boring if we had great racing circuits but they were all exactly the same templates. We want countries to have their own identity and we want circuits to be unique."
As it happens, Hanoi isn't the first track "designed from ground up", that honour belongs to the Circuit of the Americas (COTA), which was largely the work of Tavo Hellmund and motorcycle champion Kevin Schwantz.
Other than the fact that Hellmund sought to include sections similar to numerous iconic corners from existing tracks, the circuit, which is hugely popular with fans and drivers alike, was built on land with natural undulations.
With F1's powers-that-be seeking circuits in "destination cities" the basic layout of the tracks will be limited before work has even begun.
Indeed, most of the best tracks on the calendar are built on land nowhere near a city.
Check out our Thursday gallery from Hockenheim, here.