Abandoned Motor racing circuits and Unused/Ex circuits

[couger1981 89]

Thought i'd create a thread about abandoned circuits and Unused circuits  :)

Australia

Oran Park

Opened: 1962

Closed: 2009

The original 1.0 mile was opened in 1962 and was founded by the Singer Car Club. It was first extended to 1.21 miles the left most corner became as shown below, and then to 1.63 miles with the addition of the bridge and loop. The track was sold to housing developers in 2008, and closed after hosting its last meeting at the end of August 2009.

Google Earth

Austria

A1 Ring - Osterreichring

Opened: 1969

Closed/Abandoned: 2005 due to failed planning permissions after being bought by Red Bull

Reopened: 2014 to be used for the 2014 F1 championship

Originally built in 1969 it was around 4 miles. After the death of  Mark Donohue's, the Hella Licht S corner was tightened and a full chicane was installed in 1987.  After the 1987 Grand Prix was stopped twice after start line accidents, no further GPs took place. In 1996 the circuit was reprofiled and was renamed the A1-Ring. A Grand Prix was planned for the 2004 season but was dropped and purchased by Red Bull, the circuit closed in 2005 due to planning permissions and now has been added to the 2014 F1 Championship.

Google Earth

Belgium

Mettet

Opened: Late 1940s

closed: 1999 Inactive: 2005

5.2 mile or 8.4 km track first used before 1950 it used public roads before being a defunct car circuit in 1999.  A new Motorcycle racing circuit was built in 2006/07 next to the old hairpin of the old track.

Old Pits

Google Earth

Brazil

Autodromo International Nelson Piquet - Rio de Janeiro

Opened: 1977

Closed: 2012

The track held the Brazilian GP from 1978 until 1990. The 1.850 mile  track was built to host the Cart series, although for 2001 the series was due to revert to the GP track until the city's mayor cancelled the race. There were plans to demolish the circuit, but after lobbying the track remained open, but with half the land closed to accomodate the building of a velodrome and acquatics centre for the 2005 Pan-American games, this forced the closure of the oval (known as the Autodromo Emerson Fittipaldi). The track was to be closed fully at the end of 2012 to make way for an Olympic Village for the games in 2016.

Google Earth

Finland

Keimola

Opened: 1966

Closed: 1978

This 3km circuit was first used in 1966, but closed in 1978. It held Interseries and International F2 races in the 1970s. A karting circuit was constructed on the site in 1971, a Rallycross circuit in 1974 and a Drag strip in 1975. The circuit featured elevation changes of up to 14m in height.

Old control tower

Google Earth

France

Albi

Opened: 1933 (Original circuit)

Closed: 1955

New circuit Opened: 1959

Racing first started on the circuit in 1933 with the pits and startline being on a short straight before the road twisted down into St.Antoine. At St.Juery the cars had to contend with an extreme hairpin bend, followed by a railway level crossing. The circuit was shortened in 1951 to 1.850 miles, before being closed in 1955 following the Le Mans disaster. Racing resumed at the nearby Aerodrome in 1959, and was a flat and featureless. The Chicane was introduced in 1988.

Old circuit

New

Google Earth

Charade Circuit

Opened: 1958

Closed: 1988

 A 5 mile circuit around two extinct volcanoes was built in 1958, and it held the French GP four times. This circuit was closed in 1988 to be replaced with a new 2.4 mile circuit on the same site.

Old

New

Charade Charade 

Google Earth old and new track

[couger1981 89]

Circuit Paul Ricard (Ex F1 track)

Opened: 1970 

First used in 1970, the short circuit wasn't used until 1986. In 2000 the circuit was purchased by Bernie Ecclestone after Ricards death, and underwent an extensive upgrade in order to make it into a test venue. The gravel traps were removed and replaced by tarmac run-off areas, differing stripes of high-friction asphalt being used to slow the cars down. A series of interlinking sections were built to enable a total of 40 track variations to be used, with even the height of the kerbs being able to be changed.

Old layout

New with Alternative layouts

Google Earth

Dijon-Prenois (Ex F1 track)

Opened: 1972

Opening in 1972, this track hosted both French and Swiss F1 Grand Prix's. It suffered from being slightly too short, and despite being extended from 2 miles with the addition of Parabolique, the Grand Prix eventually left in 1984. The circuit is best remembered for the 1979 French GP, when Rene Arnoux and Gilles Villeneuve battled for second place, repeatedly swapping places and banging wheels in the closing laps. Today the track hosts national championships, together with GT racing.

Google Earth

Circuit de Cadours

Opened: 1920 

First Race: 1948

Closed: Late 1950s

On September 18, 1948 about twenty cars had registered for the event with all racing Traction Citroën parts. The race was won by René Mauriès, from Albi, for this very first event, at the average speed of 121.97 km/h (75.79 mph) on this race track.

Traction Citreon

Track

Google Earth

Germany

AVUS

Opened: 1921

Closed: 1999

First used in 1921 and venue for the first German GP in 1926, this was used for one championship GP, in 1959. The race was run in two parts, and Ferrari enjoyed a rare 1-2-3 with its Dino 246. At that time, Avus still incorporated the steeply banked north bend, linking two parallel straights part of the Autobahn.

After the fall of the Berlin wall, the closure of the AVUS for race events became more and more problematic for environmental and traffic concerns, the last race was held in 1998, with a Farewell event held in 1999 and in 2000 the decided the best place to move the race was to the EuroSpeedway circuit.

Google Earth

Grenzlandring

Opened: 1939/39

Closed: Early 50s Defunct: 1999

5.7 mile/9.005 km track used pre 1938. Now defunct (1999).

Google Earth

[couger1981 89]

Hockenheimring

Opened: 1932

Hockenheim was originally opened May 1932 using a 12 km layout. It was an anti-clockwise circuit, and it was used until 1937, after which it was remodelled to form the 7.7 km/4.78 mile circuit. The original circuit was almost eight kilometres long and consisted of two long straights with a long "Eastern" corner in the forest and a U-turn inside Hockenheim joining them together.

After Jim Clark was killed on 7 April 1968 in a F2 racing accident, two fast chicanes were added and the track was lined with crash barriers in 1970. A small memorial was placed near the first chicane, at the site of his accident. In 1982, another chicane was added at the Ostkurve (east curve), after a driver was killed there in 1980 and the first chicane was made slower as well.

The first chicane was reprofiled in 1989, and in 1992 the Ostkurve was reprofiled still further to slow the cars down. Further reprofiling in 1994 led to a track length of 4.220 miles. In the early 2000s, F1 officials demanded the 6.823 km (4.240 mi) track be shortened and threatened to discontinue racing there, due to competition from other tracks such as the EuroSpeedway and sites in Asia.

What it looks like now

Google Earth

Nordschleife

Opened: 1927

Closed: 1976

The track was completed in spring of 1927, the first races to take place on 18 June 1927 showed motorcycles and sidecars. The first motorcycle race was won on an English 350 cc Velocette. The cars followed a day later with a Mercedes Compressor winning.

In 1929 the full Nurburgring was used for the last time in major racing events, as future Grands Prix would be held only on the Nordschleife. Motorcycles and minor races primarily used the shorter and safer Südschleife.

After World war 2 racing resumed in 1947 and 1951, the Nordschleife of the Nürburgring again became the main venue for the German Grand Prix as part of the Formula One World Championship, with the exception of 1959 when it was held on the AVUS in Berlin.

On 5 August 1961, during practice for the 1961 German Grand Prix, Phil Hill became the first person to complete a lap of the Nordschleife in under 9 minutes, with a lap of 8 minutes 55.2 seconds  in the Ferrari 156 "Sharknose" Formula One car.

After Lauda's crash in 1976 it spelled the end for the Nordschleife circuit and paved way for the new Nurburgring circuit.

Map

Google Earth

Hungary

Balatonring

Never Opened

A 4.6 km anti-clockwise circuit located in Savoly, Hungary near Lake Balaton. Construction started on the 6th November 2008, and the circuit was due to host a round of the MotoGP circuit in September 2009, but this was cancelled due to financial problems, and the circuit was not due for completion until 2010.

As of November 2012, the plot has been on auction for a month. The project has accumulated a total debt of HUF 3.5 bn (USD 16,000,000) and the plot is being sold for HUF 1.5 bn (USD 6,800,000). Nothing can be seen from the track line as weeds have grown over it.

Google Earth

Italy

Monza old

Opened: 1922

Closed: 1933

The track was officially opened on 3 September 1922, with the maiden race the second Italian Grand Prix held on 10 September 1922. In 1928, the most serious Italian racing accident to date ended in the death of driver Emilio Materassi and 27 spectators at that year's Grand Prix. The accident led to further Grand Prix races confinement to the high-speed loop until 1932. The 1933 race was marked by the deaths of three drivers and the Grand Prix layout was changed, with two chicanes added and the longer straights removed.

Google Earth

Nardo Ring

Opened: 1975

The track is 12.5 kilometres (7.8 mi) long and is round, has four lanes for cars and motorcycles totaling 16 metres (52 ft) in width and has a separate inner ring for trucks at a width of 9 metres (30 ft). In the cars/motorcycle ring the lanes are banked at such a degree that a driver in the outer most lane doesn't need to turn the wheel while driving at speeds of up to 240 km/h (149 mph).

In 2012 Porsche bought the track for testing purposes.

Google Earth

[couger1981 89]

Thread updated.

[Syn 2]

Sad to see the older tracks closed. A lot of character with those places.

[f1since08 60]

You've got to do Hockenheim!

[couger1981 89]

fIsince08 said:

You've got to do Hockenheim!

Its already to be put in the thread, Germany is coming soon :)

[couger1981 89]

Added Hockenheimring and Nordschleife

[f1since08 60]

Hockenheim is so sad :(

[couger1981 89]

Added Hockenheimring and Nordschleife

fIsince08 said:

Hockenheim is so sad :(

Yep can't believe its taken nearly 15 years to be over grown like that :(

[couger1981 89]

Updated list.

[Motorsport4ever 0]

couger1981 said:

Added Hockenheimring and Nordschleife

fIsince08 said:

Hockenheim is so sad :(

Yep can't believe its taken nearly 15 years to be over grown like that :(

Patrick Depailler was the driver who got killed on the Ostkurve in 1980. Probably due broken rear wing/steering, but the reason of the crash is still unclear. Ironically the FIA wanted to bring catch-fences to the 1980 German GP at the Hockenheimring, which would have saved Depailler's life. But Depailler's crash was before the GP and the catch fences were still convulted trackside at that point.

[jordieDAFC 0]

These are from the Austrian track back in 2006 before Red Bull bought it. Pretty cool













More pics here http://www.circuitsofthepast.nl/en-US/oesterreichring/lapoesterreichring

[couger1981 89]

Yeah around the same time the previous owners wasn't allowed to keep upgrading due to no persmission to do so.

[f1since08 60]

Isn't the original track still there? (All be it in lots of pieces)

[jordieDAFC 0]

couger1981 said:

Yeah around the same time the previous owners wasn't allowed to keep upgrading due to no persmission to do so.

Didn't the owners go into admin or something?

fIsince08 said:

Isn't the original track still there? (All be it in lots of pieces)

The one from the 70's/80's? Pretty sure it is, although its used as a road to the new track

[f1since08 60]

jordieDAFC said:

couger1981 said:

Yeah around the same time the previous owners wasn't allowed to keep upgrading due to no persmission to do so.

Didn't the owners go into admin or something?

fIsince08 said:

Isn't the original track still there? (All be it in lots of pieces)

The one from the 70's/80's? Pretty sure it is, although its used as a road to the new track

Yeah I thought so too.

[couger1981 89]

jordieDAFC said:

couger1981 said:

Yeah around the same time the previous owners wasn't allowed to keep upgrading due to no persmission to do so.

Didn't the owners go into admin or something?

fIsince08 said:

Isn't the original track still there? (All be it in lots of pieces)

The one from the 70's/80's? Pretty sure it is, although its used as a road to the new track

Yeah the couldn't get the rights to build anymore after they wanted reprofile and to build a leisure center, then they used their own money in 2008 fix up the track.

[f1since08 60]

Perhaps a bit of a thread revival but I've never seen this before, the original Fuji was a monster!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qy9Gsni54D8

[Tommig1995 0]

fIsince08 said:

Perhaps a bit of a thread revival but I've never seen this before, the original Fuji was a monster!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qy9Gsni54D8

I knew the layout used to look like that, but the first 2 corners are madness. Part of me now requires myself to boot up the PS2 and go run the 80's version (not quite so mad) in GT4...