G-force and undulation – African Grand Prix ‘iconic’ corner revealed

Former F1 driver Alex Wurz has revealed which corner he expects will become the “iconic” part of the African Grand Prix RISE Motordrome.

Wurz’s design company is working alongside Tilke Engineering to create F1’s newest track.

“Iconic” F1 African Grand Prix corner revealed

F1 announced its grand return to Africa this week, with the African Grand Prix in Rwanda set to debut in the early 2030s.

This will end a wait of close to four decades for the championship to return to the continent, following the last running of the South African Grand Prix in 1993.

The layout unveiled to select media, including PlanetF1, on site in Rwanda has notes of Spa Francorchamps and Suzuka, with a twisting layout that boasts a total 197m of elevation change.

Pressed to identify a single corner that could become the “iconic” element of the track, Wurz looked to the start of the lap.

“We can’t yet take you all around the lap,” the former Benetton driver said.

“I would hope all of the 17 corners are iconic, and that’s the circuit itself, which will be on the favourite list of all the drivers and riders. If I name just some of the segments, Turn 2 is pretty impressive because you come and top speed down the hill with over 10% descent, and you go into a compression, which you will experience high G forces vertically and laterally.

“The corner is then going into 12% and then the corner exit. When you go all the way up to the hill, you’re facing sky with almost 15% of incline, and you’re still at 240 kilometres an hour, having just undergone so much G-force.

“So that’s one of the corners which I can’t wait to drive and see the races unfolding.”

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With F1 tracks seeming to produce less overtaking in recent years, this highlighted most by the four overtakes seen at the Madring, where all came through either problems or an immense tyre offset, Wurz was keen to stress that passing would be possible on this new layout.

Still referencing Turn 2, he added: “It is also the corner where actually we all believe that you could go side by side through the entire corner when you then come to a technical section which is playing a lot with the hills with cambers to challenge the engineers and the drivers to not make it easy but yet to have a special flow.

“Then we have, which you’ve seen on the renders, a very fast-flowing section through the lakefront. That’s multiple corners added to each other.

“But it’s not that you just say one after the next. It’s designed that when you miss one corner, the entire sequence is getting ultra challenging, and you lose lap time.

“So it is technically ultra challenging, visually absolutely beautiful. So that’s the task of the design.

“Hopefully, everything will be named iconic and be a favourite circuit of many drivers.”

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

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