Postcard from Interlagos
Wednesday ,23 November 2011
Interlagos may be a little ragged around the edges, but the Brazilian Grand Prix remains a firm favourite with the drivers and teams. It’s a venue that lives and breathes Formula 1 thanks to the infectious enthusiasm of the local fans who always create a special atmosphere over the race weekend
Interlagos didn’t become internationally famous until the early seventies, but in fact it was first opened way back in 1940. Set in a natural bowl that featured a lake, the original track was just under five miles in length.
The undulating countryside lent itself to a spectacular design. Much of it was compromised of a fast outer loop that linked a series of ultra fast corners. Just before the pit straight the road ducked left into a twisty infield section that helped to make up an unusually long lap, before it rejoined the outer loop for a long, curving blast along the pit straight.
For years the delights of Interlagos were known mainly only to the locals. There was no effort to attract F1 cars until Emerson Fittipaldi hit the international stage, and in 1972 a non-championship Brazilian Grand Prix was organised at his local track. It paved the way for the first proper race a year later, by which time Fittipaldi was the reigning World Champion. He gave his fans what they wanted by winning the inaugural event, a feat he repeated the following year.
In 1978 the Brazilian race went to a bland new track at Rio, but it returned to Interlagos for the next two years, when the ground effect cars of the time proved astonishingly fast through the track’s big corners.
It was simple economics, rather than safety concerns, that saw the race moved fulltime to the more exotic location of Rio from 1981-‘89. After a while the Paulistas began a campaign to get it back. By then it was evident that the original track was too long and too dangerous for contemporary cars, so a rebuilding programme was instigated.
A shorter 2.6-mile layout emerged, and it was used for the first time in 1990. Many such revamps have failed to capture the spirit of the original. But the modern Interlagos is widely regarded as a good compromise, given the constraints of modern safety standards, and its designer made clever use of a lot of existing asphalt.
The current track cuts out much of the fast outer loop of the original. The curving rush alongside the pits is intact, but in place of the long, looping lefthanders that followed there is a tight downhill dip to the left (a great passing spot), followed by a right/left complex onto part of the original infield, now run in the opposite direction. That eventually rejoins the old track a few corners from the end of the lap, although the corner onto the pit straight is tighter than it was.
The frenzied atmosphere was unaffected by the layout changes, and the fans had much to cheer at the first events on the shorter track. Fittipaldi had been replaced in their hearts and minds by Ayrton Senna, another hometown hero. Senna never won in Rio, but he triumphed second time out at Interlagos in ‘91, and scored an even more memorable success two years later. Since Ayrton’s death Rubens Barrichello and Felipe Massa have been the crowd favourites.
Despite the rebuild, Interlagos is still far from easy to master. It has always been bumpy and physically punishing on the neck, as one of the few anti-clockwise tracks with predominantly lefthanders. There are some deceptively tricky corners, which are particularly hazardous when it rains – and it rains a lot in Brazil!
Credit: Sahara Force India Formula One Team (www.forceindiaf1.com)
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