Adelaide Street Circuit


The Adelaide Street Circuit is a temporary street circuit in the East Parklands adjacent to the Adelaide central business district in South Australia, Australia.
The 3.780 km long "Grand Prix" version of the track hosted eleven Formula One Australian Grand Prix events from 1985 to 1995, as well as an American Le Mans Series endurance race on New Year's Eve in 2000. Since 1999, a shortened version of the circuit has held the Adelaide 500 touring car race. A sprint version of the circuit has also been used since 2014.

Formula 1 Grand Prix

Since 1999, the track has hosted an annual Supercars race, the Adelaide 500, on a shorter, 3.219 km variant of the track. The event has become one of the most acclaimed on the Supercars calendar, and is the only event added to the Supercars Hall of Fame. During Adelaide's era hosting the Australian Grand Prix, the circuit also hosted annual non-championship races for the Australian Touring Car Championship, the previous incarnation of Supercars.

Sprint Circuit

Between 2014 and 2018, an annual Adelaide Motorsport Festival ran on the Victoria Park Sprint Circuit, a shortened 1.4 km layout. The layout turned right along Wakefield Street after the Senna Chicane and then rejoined the main circuit for the final corners. The event had attracted older Formula 1 machinery, with Ivan Capelli holding the lap record in a March CG891.

Circuit

The 500-metre-long pit straight is inside the Victoria Park. During the Formula One and early V8 Supercar eras the Victoria Park Racecourse, a horse racing track, was located at the park, though has since been removed. The buildings and grandstands are temporary and removed each year due to ongoing campaigning by the Adelaide Parklands Preservation Association Inc.

Senna Chicane

At the end of the straight, drivers negotiate the Senna Chicane, so named after triple World Champion Ayrton Senna following his death at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix. Senna had sat on the pole for the first Adelaide Grand Prix in 1985, and would go on to take the pole in Adelaide 6 times in 9 races, while winning in 1991, as well as his last career victory in 1993.

Wakefield Road

After the chicane the cars take a fast left turn to go uphill on a short straight on Wakefield Road to East Terrace. They then have a series of right angle turns along East Terrace. The short form of the track has three of these.

Turns 7 and 8

Followed by fourth onto Bartels Road back across the parklands. Then the track follows the fast turn 8 sweeper. This corner was re-configured in 2009 and it produced some protests from many of the teams due to its speed and lack of runoff area. Turn 8 has been the site of many crashes in the various categories that have used the shortened version of the circuit.
The full Grand Prix circuit bypasses the turn onto Bartels Road and continues with a sweeping left-right-right into Stag Turn. This leads onto the 360-metre-long Jones Straight, known as Rundle Road for the rest of the year and named after Australia's World Champion Alan Jones. Then there is a fast right-hand sweeper onto the 900-metre-long Brabham Straight, on Dequetteville Terrace where the over Formula One cars in the turbo era were reaching speeds in excess of making Adelaide easily the fastest street circuit of the time as the only others were the much tighter Monaco, Detroit and Phoenix circuits. The short form of the track rejoins Brabham Straight ⅔ of the way down, so the 640-metre-long Bartels Road straight is longest on that layout. In 2007 this section of track was renamed Brock Straight after touring car driver Peter Brock. At the end of Brabham Straight is a right hand hairpin turn onto Wakefield Road, then a left turn and long sweeping right hand curve back into Victoria Park behind the pit area. The lap concludes with another right-hand hairpin onto the pit straight.
The track is essentially flat except for a small valley on the Brock Straight, and a slight incline on Jones Straight, while the run up Wakefield Road from turns 3 to 4 also has a slight incline. All of these sections of track run in an east–west direction. The elevation ranges from 36 to 53 metres.
When the idea of holding a Grand Prix in the parklands was first raised, there was some opposition from people concerned about environmental damage, as the parks have a number of mature trees with birds and possums living in them. There is no larger wildlife in the parklands, as they are heavily developed. These concerns seem to have been proven unfounded, as spectators often watch magpies and rosellas when there is nothing happening on the track. Indeed, the total road traffic during race weekend is significantly less than there is any other day of the year.
The race meetings have the feature race, but also a number of races for "lesser" categories, making four days of entertainment for the crowds of spectators, without long periods of boredom that could occur if only practice and qualifying for the main event preceded it. Many of the events also have after-race concerts on a stage erected for the purpose on a playing field in the middle of the track. Some of the artists who have performed the concerts either at the Grand Prix or the Clipsal 500 include Cher, Paul Simon, Tina Turner, Daryl Braithwaite, INXS and Kiss. During her concert following the 1993 AGP, Tina Turner had an impromptu visitor in the form of the race winner and triple World Champion Ayrton Senna. Although she had already performed the song earlier, as a tribute to Senna, Turner again sung her hit song "The Best".
The stadium section also hosted the Pedal Prix and a prologue stage of the Classic Adelaide Rally and the replacement Targa Adelaide Rally.
The pit straight is used each November for the Sporting Car Club of South Australia's annual John Blanden's Climb To The Eagle. This event commenced as part of the 1985 Formula One with many well known racing identities taking part. The event sees up to 600 sports and exotic cars lined up on the starting grid before leaving to drive to Eagle on the Hill in the Adelaide Hills on the Friday of the weekend when the F1 Grand Prix was traditionally held in Adelaide. Another event held in November is the annual Toy Run which features over 1,000 motorcycle riders donating toys for under privileged children. The Toy Run moved to using the pit straight as its starting point in 2012 after previously starting from Glenelg.

Lap records

Grand Prix circuit

As of 8 March 2017. The fastest ever recorded lap of the original 3.780 km Grand Prix Circuit was 1:13.371 by triple World Champion Ayrton Senna driving a McLaren MP4/8 Ford during qualifying for the 1993 Australian Grand Prix. However, as this was in qualifying and not a race, it does not count as the lap record.

Supercars circuit

The fastest recorded lap of the 3.219 km Supercars circuit is 1:17.9726 set by Adelaide born driver Simon Hodge on 28 February 2014 driving a Mygale M11 Mercedes-Benz Formula 3.

Sprint circuit

The fastest recorded lap of the 1.4 km Victoria Park Sprint circuit is 0:42.5753 set by Ivan Capelli on 2 December 2018 driving a March CG891 car from the 1989 Formula One season.
ClassDriverVehicleTimeDate
Outright Ivan CapelliMarch CG8910:42.57532 December 2018