F1 at 70: The best grand prix circuits - by those who know

Nürburgring and Spa: a load of cliches! I know it’s got 100 and whatever corners. In fact, many of those corners you could make into one big corner rather than having three little bits. I felt to some degree that it was a bit of a party trick.

Another circuit which is a favourite of mine is Montjuich Park in Barcelona. It’s what might be loosely described as an old-fashioned street circuit. It was much bigger than Monaco – it climbed and fell, the highest point was just after the start finish line and the lowest point was probably 45 metres below that.

There was a point where the cars got airborne. I’ve got a photograph of me in ’75 in the Surtees airborne, there’s a foot of air between the car and the ground.

The challenge was to find the rhythm of the circuit and run the barriers as close as you could on the entry and the exit without making contact. That takes some skill.

Considering what it was, it was quick in our cars. It was a place you bonded with, an instant love affair. I would say today it’s still the best street track that I’ve ever raced on. It felt like this is what a racing driver should be doing.

Martin Brundle

Former F1 driver, Le Mans winner, broadcaster

For an F1 driver, the great circuits are the ones where you always feel there’s more time left, maybe the circuit you’ll never quite conquer.

One that scares you a little bit with some high speed corners, so that you feel challenged by it because it’s so satisfying when you get it right. Eau-Rouge (Spa-Francorchamps) as it used to be or the Stowe – Club combo (Silverstone), 130R (Suzuka) before they eased it up a bit – there are some corners you approach with subconscious trepidation or even conscious trepidation.

It was challenging you. If you got it wrong, you might smash the car up or hurt yourself. Not that you anticipated or wanted to do that, but there’s no doubt about it, the fear factor, the challenges, it was why we loved the old-school circuits.

As a driver, there are circuits you always felt slightly more confident on. I love street circuits: Monaco; Montreal to an extent is a street circuit; I love Adelaide. Those circuits, the hustle of them.

Fighting an F1 car at Monaco, especially back in the turbo days, it doesn’t get much better than that. On qualifying boost around the streets of Monaco, in a handful of a car, with 1300 – 1400 horsepower, that was quite thrilling, to say the least. I always default then to Suzukia Monza, Silverstone, Spa, Monaco, I loved going to those tracks to drive on them and I love walking down the side of them now when I visit.

Silverstone I love, it’s much more high speed, there’s hardly any low speed there whatsoever. It’s just such a massive challenge for the cars and the drivers, especially this generation.

I think this is the generation of cars that suits that track, better than than any other. It’s so incredibly fast now, especially in the Becketts complex. When we first went to this generation of cars in 2017 and put all the downforce on them, it took the drivers until the Sunday to get used to it.

I remember chatting to our drivers and then other drivers in the paddock on the Friday, they said, “You’ve got no idea how fast Becketts is now”. Going through the complex at that speed and trying to extract lap time as well, at the same time, it takes you some getting used to, even for a Formula 1 driver.

Suzuka is another great circuit which has a really special mix of high-speed and then some very low-speed corners. If you can get the car right for Suzuka as an engineer and driver combination, I think you can get it right anywhere.

Paul-Henri Cahier

F1 photographer

What makes a great F1 circuit? Elevation, proximity to the cars and action, challenging corners and atmosphere.

If you look at all the circuits, except Monza, they all have a drop factor. They all go up and down. That’s really important because it’s great for spectators, it’s great for photographers, and I think it’s great for drivers. They love it.

I always loved Brands Hatch because it’s so spectacular. You take Paddock Bend, then all of a sudden the track goes downhill – it’s so beautiful and colourful. I always loved that shot from from the top of Paddock Bend, looking down.

At Brands Hatch I did what is probably my most famous picture, of Alain Prost and Niki Lauda on the grid after the race was stopped in 1984. So of course that brings me a strong memory.

Very unique, there’s no other place like it.

The old Österrichring was super fast and again had a beautiful backdrop with the rolling hills in the fields. It had great photographic opportunities and of course drivers love Österrichring.

I think the exit of the Bosch Kurve was definitely a magical corner. In those days (’70s/’80s) you basically had a small guardrail (at the corner). You could stand on the exit of the corner, on the edge of the guardrail, and cars would come almost brushing by it. Gilles Villeneuve famously brushed the barrier there, ripping off some advertising banners that were on the track side of the it.

The Nürburgring was so incredibly spectacular. Cars jumping in the air and the famous Karussell. Something that also needs to be stressed is the atmosphere element. The spectators were close to the cars, they had a great view.

It goes back to older days when drivers were more visible. They were not buried inside their car. They were more outside, so to speak. I think that created a proximity with between the public and the driver.

Jarno Zaffelli

F1 Circuit Designer, who worked on upgrading Zandvoort

Suzuka, that’s my favourite! Now, I’m starting to think Zandvoort can be at a very similar level to Suzuka, looking at the feedback from drivers who drove there. Of course, Suzuka’s older.

What makes me think this (about Zandvoort) is that it is very tiny, I almost define it as cosy in some way. It has two corners, particularly T3, that is something that is unique in all the calendar.

Talking about what makes the historic circuits great, they are great not only for the history but because this history was created thanks to the lack of perfection. This is the difference, new tracks are often built thinking of…let’s say a highway!

Previously, tracks were narrow, they were tight, they were organic, and then new circuits became like highways: wider, longer, straighter.

With Monaco, it’s not a great design, it’s a great track, you know the difference? It has a lot of history, it’s unique, something different, but it’s 3km, you know? It’s very tight, it’s twisty, it’s not extracting everything from the cars, you can see a lot of speed, but only because it is very tight and narrow.

The first time I went to Suzuka was in 2009, I saw it, I recognised it, I remember perfectly that the track was telling me something and I tried to put this into in all my following designs. It was not only this circuit that told me something, but Suzuka was the F1 track along with Imola that taught me the most and Spa also. I learned a lot from those tracks what was possible with circuit design.