No, it's a supersized progress chart...

But as soldiers "doing safety checks" or as workers?

I'm slightly surprised that pictures of theplace not yet finished have been allowed out.

Interesting that the pit exit line hasn't been drawn yet!

Mark Sutton's impressions

I'm not surprised. Anyway even if it's a bit too much for you, it's just a busy pre-GP Wednesday on the pictures.

"Herman Tilke". Ahem.


As an aside, the thing that's amusing is that Tilke suggests the race will be "spectacular" because of the lack of grip; which makes me want to say "so why don't you just paint portions of the braking zone and exit to make things permanently more spectacular?".

It's not over thinking people outright want the race to fail. So much for "fans" huh?

Well from what I have seen tracks with no grip off the line lead to precisions. Bahrain, Hungary. I can only hope here theres no grip on the line so it makes no difference.

The track really looks sodding horrendous to drive, its a typical Tilke affair, long straights crappy 90 degree twists and very very few fast corners to enjoy.

Of corse if it produces a good Grand Prix its all that matters to me in terms of the fly-away races.

I genuinely don't think its too bad a track layout and the 2nd sector especially looks good. I'm in the dark about whether the conditions will lead to an exciting race or not. We;kk have to see on Sunday.

I heard a different story on twitter, someone saying how the teams refused to pay the extra fees to use the other floors so they're sticking to the ground floors

having driven the track on F1 2010 I agree sector 2 looks like it will be the best, its got the fast bends and there is some flow to the track.

It's makes the seats look full for TV.

After many minutes of F12010... there is a serious braking zone into the hairpin, reminiscent of Montreal (with close walls). There are some high speed compound curves similar to Suzuka.

It's not as bad as Valencia or Singapore or Yas Marina. Totally flat.

I'm guessing a Red Bull track at this point. I doubt we'll see close racing, they are going to need all the aero they can get.

As workers.
Their army was used to speed up the track preparations.

Is that Nico?

No - Nico's better looking than that....

it seems like the final corner might be bit dangerous due to the wall blocking the view of cars going to pits

from karun onboard and codemasters game that corner will be probably almost flat out

Except that it's way off the racing line. Cars looking to pit will be on the inside of turn 17; cars that are racing will stay on the outside to take the turn 18 kink.

No, it's not wanting it to be another farce like we had at Indy.

HOTNESS

For those who can read portuguese, Luís Fernando Ramos writes about how facilities and the cirucit are much better than he ever anticipated at Yeongam. The terror that filled the paddock through this year was way over the top and the locals are doing their best to make it a great weekend.

http://blog-do-ico.blogspot.com/2010/10/outra-face.html

I know the weekend isn't over yet, but it's worth the read.

It actually looks like a circuit worth driving.. and so far, the people behind the race have done their best to deal with the niggles we exepcted.

Nothing major though!

Overtaking is going to be very difficult. The track looks very narrow to me. Particularly for a modern 'Tilkedrome'.

Im stunned by the lack of run off everywhere, blind corners and walls the other side of the white lines, in this day and age there is simply no need, which is a shame because the actual layout is quite different, but seeing as half the lap is one line and blind, i dont see any excitement , unless someone goes off, and they will, big

It is so tight in places because part of the track is supposed to be in a city that is yet to be built. When they build the city around it, it will look like Singapore or Valencia.

But broadly speaking I agree with you, the track could have been wider at places and have larger run offs. Poor decision since the track as it is is only useful for car racing.

People talking about lack of run offs? Normally people are talking about too much run off. You can't win.

What did you guys watch? "It's totally wide open" and nobody touched a wall in any of the sessions I watched.

Pretty much! And the only real incident was Yamamoto, and in that case

A) Yamamoto is rubbish
B) The HRT is rubbish
C) The corner he went off at has been changed

I think the amount of run offs is fine , it's nice to see at turn 12 I think? where there is no kerbing, the drivers going wide and kicking up dust. No doubt next year they will put a kerb there and make it easier..

I was just thinking that. You can please some of the people all the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, etc.

I really like the lack of kerbing and the 'rough' feel to the track - seems like the drivers are having to push the limits, and those who try to straight-line corners or take to the kerbing are getting punished.

Affected this board too. I said all along it would be fine but nobody believed it.

Great facilities, great location, great track (drivers love it).

I was one who thought the track would be in shambles, but they'd go on no matter what simply because of Bernie's will. I was wrong with that. And the track map doesn't do it any justice. What looks like a cookie cutter is actually quite exciting.
Hopefully the race will be good too.

The only dodgy bit is the last turn/pit entry I think. the rest of the track is really very well done.

I'm convinced, the track is much better than other Tilk-o-Domes even without the rain. And somehow there were people in the stands and a traffic jam outside!!!
I'd take KIC over Bahrain, or Abu Dhabi, or Valencia or all of them any time.

I simply love this circuit! My favourite part is that little kink that can be taken flat out just before the pit straight, love it all actually.

I think this fully deserves it's place on the calendar. The only changes I'd want would be to adjust the pitlane entry to make it a bit safer and skip out the turns 4-5-6 complex in favour of the shortcut piece of track that's already there.

I really hope whatever they have planned in and around the circuit takes place. It would make this track spectacular.

Tilke said they had actually planned to start building the city and marina three years ago. :/

I know baseball is a bigger sport over there, plus it's somewhat in the middle of nowhere but I hope they don't give on it. I've only seen the planned buildings from the Red Bull track preview and it looked amazing.

Yep, good circuit and pretty good crowd. AD has the former but not the latter, and Valencia the latter but not the former. Promising first race.

Terrible track. It´s a series of S bends. How very imaginative. Tylke´s worst effort to date, and that´s saying something.

Tilke who only build tracks with straights, hairpins and 90-degree corners...

The 'street' section had some nice corners, and a couple of proper scary ones. First sector's abysmal, a bit like the Sentul circuit in Indonesia, but with much closer walls. The new pavement's reaction to the rain was obviously a huge issue; pretty much no one who got off the racing line trying to overtake stayed on the circuit. And apparently the track was all but unraceable with quite minor amounts of rain at the start. Shades of the old Misano circuit in Italy.

But... if the track owners keep working at it, they can certainly turn it into one of the better modern circuits. In quite a promising part of the world, too, provided the Korean public ever take an interest in buying foreign cars.

ill wait for a dry race with proper cured asphalt to judge this track.

Same here, but for now I have to say it is very good, I really enjoyed the race, first ten laps aside...

I loved the track

This

It's a good track really, all the new tracks are pretty decent. We had a nice race in Valencia this year too which everyone slates as the worst track ever. Ok Bahrain with that extra section is just a joke

This one is a cut above the rest though. Looking at the layout of the next new track, the Indian track there's nothing that stands out, but I'll also try and reserve judgement until the Indian GP weekend starts. You don't get much out of looking at a basic layout, or even if you play it on a reasonable virtual version (F1 2010)

Well the biggest thread I've made so far, I might make a similar one entitled ''Jaypee Group Circuit'' down the line