Is it just me or do the older ISI tracks have a more gritty, abrasive feel to them? It's like you can feel the texture of the road more, it's great, much more "gritty". Whereas the newer tracks seem more "glossy" with less of the feel of abrasion and rubber digging into the ground. I can really feel it at Mills, and I'm pretty sure it's also gone in the same way (less abrasive, more glossy) with the new Portugal update as-well. Is it all in my head or?? It seems the newer tracks, or updates of old tracks, have a much less road/surface texture feel to them...I'm not talking about bumps here and there feel, I'm talking about just the general road feel... What do you guys think? I know rubber can make a difference but I'm comparing them to around equal amounts of rubber.
I agree, although it's probably a conscious choice. If you look back every track since Silverstone looks more "clean", maybe tracks before that were made by other person. Silverstone looks a bit too clean for my tastes, newer tracks like AMP are quite well balanced to my eye.
Conscious choice indeed. Silverstone probably does look a bit too clean, but it was surveyed while they were preparing the track for the WSB event and it looked THAT clean. Portugal had some of the excessive bumps removed. The track surface was built before the TGM model was fully implemented, so those insane rF1 style bumps are no longer needed. That did allow us to lower the terrain filtering, so you'll feel the smaller bumps more. So in essence, it'll actually feel a bit more alive everywhere. Visually, it had its potholes removed. Even the street here which hasn't been taken care of for 20+ years looks in better shape than the original Portugal. Everything else is very much happening in your head .
Maybe the cleaned up visuals are tricking your mind into believing it also feels "cleaner"? Anyway I have never felt more "life" coming through my wheel than I am right now with these new tracks. A constant flow of information about the surface beneath me, quite incredible actually.
Ya, I can feel the car and everything, but there's this general abrasion feel with the old tracks. It's seems like a constant thing, not particular bumps here and there but just an overall rougher, more abrasive/grippier "feeling" road surface (maybe not technically more grippy, but more grippy feeling through the wheel). Not a complaint at all, and I think the new ISI tracks are fabulous don't get me wrong, just curious. Maybe it's all in stonec's and my head.
Depends on the era. These days the instant there is a bump they scream at the owner to resurface it. In a modern facility bumps are non-existent compared to even the 00's.
I know, Tim, it sucks. I remember there was a big bump going into a fast right hander at Silverstone, it was so big that you could visually see it on TV (F1 comes to my mind); I'm pretty sure they smoothened out the bump as I don't see it anymore and it was very noticeable before. I think it was within a couple years, if not the first year, of Silverstone's major revamp. Watching Indy (or CART, or Champ Cars or whatever) at San Jose was freaking awesome. Watching cars at Sebring, even Nascars at some real bumpy tracks, and so on. There are still tons of smaller bumps of which the majority are not able to be seen by us viewers and can only be felt by the driver and I guess sensed by telemetry, but sadly, like Tim says, the tracks generally just keep getting smoother as a whole every year, especially with regards to the bigger, more memorable bumps. On a sort of different note, the bumps also make the cars look faster and brutal from a pure visual standpoint (from, both, trackside/TV cams and onboard cams). Seeing the car moving from the bumps, the car corrections/slides that the bumps can sometimes cause, fighting the car - the overall drama of it all - makes for spectacular viewing aswell as listening not to mention driving. Then you have the challenge of different cars/setups/drivers dealing with the bumps better/worse than others.
... the real reason fans are turning away from F1... The bumps do make the whole thing look a lot faster and more stressful from a visual point of view. Understandable why the drivers/engineers wouldn't like it. Tell Bernie it will help with the sparks
I would not change 60s Belgum or Longford. lol By all means make a 1970 version, signwork, more armco, remove bales, etc. More mature trees and overgrown at roadside like this. ............ Also note the road resurfacing patches. --------- I think ISI guys should fire up GPL and have a look at the corrected version of Spa67 , check out Eau Rouge to Les Combes. In ISI you can take the kink after Kemmel ( the straight after Eau Rouge ) flat out virtually straight lining it. From all the old incar I have seen the kink is more like in the GPL Spa67, you can't take it flat out and the corners have heaps of camber and give real immersion and feel to the uphill run. Just a thought.
I like to see more bumps/variation in Mills surface like the rF1 track especially since no cracks etc.
