The tracks
A motley fool ponders the track maps
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The tracksA motley fool ponders the track maps |
Each track in GPL has a track.ini file, that contains some useful information: it tells you which corners you will incur a time penalty for if you cut, and (I'm guessing) the fastest possible lap an AI car can achieve. These times make good target times for us humans.
| Track | AI lap time |
G.P. laps |
G.P. fuel (human) |
AI pole time |
AI fastest race lap |
G.P. time (AI winner) |
Keep two wheels on the track for... |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kyalami | 1:21.5 | 80 | 34 | 1:21.43 | 1:22.21 | 1:50:40 | Barbeque Bend, Leeukop Bend, The Kink |
| Mexico | 1:50.4 | 65 | 34 | 1:50.24 | 1:51.65 | 2:02:03 | Turn 2, turn 3, hairpin, complex before Peralta |
| Monaco | 1:29.2 | 100 | 33 | 1:28.30 | 1:30.02 | 2:33:14 | |
| Monza | 1:29.2 | 68 | 41 | 1:28.44 | 1:29.28 | 1:42:53 | |
| Mosport | 1:23.1 | 90 | 37 | 1:22.87 | 1:23.83 | 2:07:50 | |
| Nürburgring | 8:20.0 | 15 | 36 | 8:18.92 | 8:23.93 | 2:06:23 | Nordkehre II, Hatzenbach II, Hocheichen, Adenauer Forst |
| Rouen | 1:59.2 | 60 | 41 | 1:59.02 | 2:00.28 | 2:01:22 | |
| Silverstone | 1:30.3 | 80 | 40 | 1:30.14 | 1:31.24 | 2:03:10 | Becketts, Stowe, Club, Woodcote |
| Spa | 3:20.5 | 28 | 41 | 3:20.34 | 3:22.17 | 1:34:52 | |
| Watkins Glen | 1:05.8 | 108 | 42 | 1:05.46 | 1:06.51 | 2:01:54 | |
| Zandvoort | 1:27.6 | 90 | 40 | 1:26.62 | 1:28.44 | 2:15:26 | Gerlachtbocht, Zijn Veld, Tunnel Oost |
(All AI timings were taken after deleting player.sts, and setting ntp_override = 1.0 in the [magic] section of gpl_ai.ini.)
...yee-haaa! The essence of Grand Prix Legends. It seems that in real life, this is the scariest track of all - try reading Jackie Stewart's account of his 1968 race - you certainly feel the tension when you're driving it. Of all the GPL tracks, this is the one that gives the greatest impression of speed.
To learn this brilliant track you have to put in the miles (and it is well worth learning - it makes every other track seem, well, small). Out of curiosity, I kept a lap count: it took me about 100 laps to get down from 11:30 to 8:30.
Nelson Piquet, three-times World Champion, was invited by BMW to do a race at the old Nürburgring. He'd never driven it before so he said 'Okay, but I'll tell you what I want to do - I want three cars and I want to go there for one week'. He took the three cars, blew the motor in one, crashed one, and one he just wore out. But, in the week he did 400 laps of the circuit just to learn the racetrack. 5680 miles. (Nelson won the race, by the way.)
Pete Tabrams has created a full driving guide, including pictures of each corner, a hotlap (8:10) and his setup. His commentary includes the apposite "this is the first of quite a few utterly arse-clenching points on the track that have to be taken with full commitment".
From studying maps of the area, I noticed that some of the signs in the game are misspelled (Schwalbenschwanz, just before the mini karussell) or missing (Galgenkopf, just after). So here is a researched in-order list of sections, signs and bridges, together with some translations into English (I found this helps me remember the names a little better, so I don't get lost ;-) and comments from a good-humoured Matthias Flatt:
| Südkurve | South curve | |
| Nordkurve | North curve | |
| Hatzenbach | Hatzen brook | Runs down the left side of the track. |
| Hocheichen | High oaks | Where oak trees were cut down during construction. |
| Quiddelbacher Höhe | Quiddelbach height | It's actually the uphill jump after the bridge over the B257 road. From the tower of Nürburg castle, one can see this part of the track right above the village of Quiddelbach. |
| Flugplatz | Airfield | Flugplatz is the section after the jumps, starting with the double righthander. It refers to a former airfield on the left, not the cars getting airborne (on the Quiddelbacher Höhe jump). |
| Schwedenkreuz | Swedes cross | Named after a stone cross that was erected here in memory of a murdered tax collector. He was killed by renegade Swedish troops during the Thirty Year's War. |
| Aremberg | Arem mountain | Aremberg, or Mount Arem, is a village nearby |
| (under concrete bridge) | Poststrassenbruecke = mail road bridge | |
| Fuchsröhre | Foxhole | During construction, a fox was found hiding in the drainage pipes. |
| Adenauer Forst | Forest of Adenau | Named for the village nearby |
| Metzgesfeld | Metzges field | |
| Kallenhard | A Hard or Hardt is a kind of forest. BTW: the Hockenheim Grand Prix track is located in the Hardtwald forest; the Hardtbach creek passes the Clark chicane. | |
| Wehrseifen | Here "seifen" is a ancient local expression for a little valley, which was used as a borderline. So it's "border valley" or "defense valley". | |
| (over Breidscheid bridge) | ||
| Exmühle | The mill at creek Ex. | |
| Bergwerk | Mines | |
| Kesselchen | Little Valley | A Kessel is a pot, an expression for a valley (and also the bad situation during war, when an army is surrounded by the enemy, and get's "cooked"). |
| Klostertal | Monastary valley | |
| Karussell | ||
| (under "GOODYEAR Reifen" footbridge) | GUTES JAHR Tyres | ;-) The actual sign there was Continental Reifen, a German tyre brand. |
| Hohe-Acht | High watch | The highest mountain of the Eifel hills, just nearby. Actually, "Acht" should be translated like "Achtung!", or "Watch out!" Probably, they used the mountain top for a guard post once. |
| Hedwigshöhe | Hedwig's Height | Was named for Hedwig Creutz, the wife of Dr. Creutz, the "father" of the Nürburgring. |
| Wippermann | A wipp is a bump, and a "man" is a personalized name for something - the North Sea is called "Blanker Hans" or "bare John" by sailors. So maybe Bumpy Man - even though the bumps were removed decades ago. | |
| Eschbach | Esch brook | |
| Brünnchen | Little well | |
| Eis Kurve | Ice curve | It's that scary blind off-camber left-handed downhill corner. That would have to be the one that is prone to icing up, wouldn't it? |
| Pflanzgarten | Planting garden | |
| Sprunghugel | Jump hill | The big downhill jump at the end of Pflanzgarten section. |
| (over chequered bridge) | The bridge just before Schwalbenschwanz is not recognizeable nowadays. | |
| Schwalbenschwanz | Swallow tail | |
| Kleines Karussell | Little roundabout | |
| Galgenkopf | Gallows Hill | The medieval Dukes of the Nürburg castle held their executions here. |
| Döttinger Höhe | Height of Döttinger | Named for the village nearby. |
| Meuspath (jump) | Another village nearby gave name to the jump over the road under the track. Nowadays, there are no more jumps on the straight. | |
| Antoniusbuche | There used to be a big Buche (beech) tree, named after St. Anthony. | |
| (under concrete bridge) | ||
| Tiergarten | Animal Cemetary | The knights of the Nürburg castle buried their dead war horses here. |
| Hohenrain chicane | High fields border |
Other Nürburgring pearls of wisdom:
This track is, I think, the best test of both driver and setup in GPL. We all sniff each others bottoms when we compare our 'best laps' web page: I reckon you can distill all those numbers into a single one - a person's best lap time at the Nürburgring.
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