Shanghai International Circuit - A Lap in A Formula One Car

A Lap in A Formula One Car

The circuit starts with a very long right-hander (it is about 300 degrees) that starts fast but slows towards the end before a sharp left-hander. The circuit then speeds up with a short right-hander and you get up to Gear 7 before you break heavily for the Turn 6 hairpin which is a right-hander. You accelerate away from there towards a long, fast left-hander then a long, fast right-hander. Afterwards, there are two fairly sharp, medium speed left handers which run onto a short straight. You then have a sharp, slow left-hander which is Turn 11, before a long, fast right-hander which is classified as two turns by the designer, Hermann Tilke. This leads onto a very long back straight, the longest in Formula One, at 1170m. This is as long as 11 football pitches or three and a half of the world's longest aircraft carriers. This can be hard on the cars' engines. As usual for a circuit designed by Hermann Tilke, the long straight ends with a slow corner, in this case, a right-handed hairpin. After the hairpin, the circuit bends right slightly before a relatively fast left-hander to finish.

The total length of the circuit is 5.451 km (3.387 mi), which is about average for a Formula One circuit. The lap record was set by Ferrari's Michael Schumacher in 2004. He completed one lap of the circuit in 1:32.238.