Outside Line: Another Street Circuit?

Well, it's official: the 2020 Vietnamese Grand Prix is a go.

An event long in the making and short in its anticipation, the race is set to take place on a 22-turn, 5.565km track around the streets of Hanoi, and suffice to say, it has a lot of winning over to do.

Setting aside the question of whether Vietnam can garner and maintain the interest to make this event a multi-year success, the announcement comes at a particularly awkward time for F1 fans, what with the fate of many traditional F1 tracks still in question.

It's like F1's powers-that-be are saying: "sure, the future of Silverstone is in danger, and sure, plenty of proven venues like Istanbul Park, the Nurburgring, Watkins Glen, Estoril, Imola, Zandvoort and Kyalami can't get back on the calendar, but here's another street circuit nobody wanted."

Of course, it's not Vietnam's fault those other tracks aren't on the calendar, but it does put them under more pressure to deliver entertaining races, and at first glance, that looks a pretty questionable proposition.

Trumpeted by official F1 media as a track that should treat fans "to plenty of action – not a procession", my concern is that Hermann Tilke and co have confused good wheel-to-wheel racing for the "action" of uncontested, DRS-assisted overtakes.

Possessing three long straights that lead into heavy braking zones, it might seem like the potential is there for drivers to try many opportunistic lunges, but realistically, those will be relegated to the start of the race, with the vast majority of passes sure to come on the 1.5km, flat-out stretch between turns 9 and 11.

As much an overtaking "red zone" as turns 1 and 6 may be, it just doesn't seem to make sense for a driver to risk his car there when you've got a slipstreaming opportunity immediately afterwards that is 25% longer than any other on the calendar.

Add to that a final section that while looking fun to drive, comes too late in the lap for cars to still be bunched together, and it just seems like real "action" will be hard to come by.

That said, it's possible for any circuit to give us an enthralling race under the right circumstances, but for now at least, it's hard to feel excited. More than anything else, it just increases my longing for the tracks we've lost, and could further lose should Silverstone disappear from the calendar. Even if there's nothing wrong with looking to the future, there's also something to be said for respecting the past, and indeed what makes up the DNA of this sport. This – as the kids would say – ain't it, chief.