Phillip Island Circuit is undergoing major works
The impetus for the works was initiated by FIM Safety Officers, who then in conjunction with GP Corp detailed the key changes needed for Phillip Island to maintain the FIM Class A license.
There are no changes to the tracks or the flow of the circuit, but expansion work is currently underway, as part of a six-week project, expanding the track and installation areas. concrete aprons to support the safety of the rider.
New walls are being re-installed until turns 11 and 12 to improve audience safety.
MCNews.com.au spoke with Matthew Walton, General Manager of Design and Construction for the Australian Grand Prix Corporation, to obtain the full agenda of work.
Interview with Matthew Walton
General Director of Design and Construction
Australian Grand Prix Corporation
Trevor Hedge: Please take us around the active track, Matt, I believe there’s a lot of asphalt coming out at turn one, and a new ledge of asphalt outside the second, and I think the wall behind the turn one has also been changed?
Matthew Walton: “Yes, yes, if you are about to turn a turn, one of the key changes required by the FIM is to widen the asphalt track, as well as widen the gravel road. So when you have a plan, you’ll find it extending even further south, which is where the air barrier is. It also extends further west, closer to the one-way gate, from that point of view. That extends right up to the second turn, so with the gravel extension we’ve also installed Armco fenders and will have bundles of tires up front along with the carousel. So that’s one of the main work we’re doing to improve safety around that part of the circuit.”
Trev: Can you explain what carousel means?
Walton: “With such a thick rubber lining, industrial conveyor belts are used to remove the rounded edges of the tires to create a seamless flat surface that sits in front of the tire bundles for an added level of protection. if a bike must be out of the circuit.
Trev: I believe somewhere along that wall after the turn an escape area now has better access points so the flaggers can go through and get the bikes, right?
Walton: “Yes, there will be two. The Armco barrier, if you can imagine what it was like before, what we did was push the barrier forward of the marshal road, so that the marshal road could be used in operation. monitoring, so that’s an important change, because it was clear that before that, it wasn’t safe for the sheriff or official to be out there while the circuit was hot. So the fence was pushed forward, maintaining the entrance, and then, in turn, back towards the police stations and within that fence there were two entrances for the officials.
Trev: On the inside and exit of the second fork and about the second half of the south loop, no real changes on that part?
Walton: “There is only an extension of the asphalt road entering, the exit of turn one, about two meters in front of the sheriff’s post at the second turn, for those driving on the left and then it turns back. Return to the entrance of the second intersection. to allow riders to go wide and then return if they go wide. That’s probably the key change there, and then to the driver’s right, there’s also a concrete ledge installed for the same purpose, just to minimize any error from the rider. So part of the work going on there is also mowing the lawn to make sure it stays level with the rest of the circuit. “
Trev: If we move down to the fork, I believe there’s also some work done there?
Walton: “At the third exit, we have another concrete edge, and that is the same as at the second exit.”
Trev: I see they’re basically at the exit of the third turn. If you move wide, we have two more meters of concrete there?
Walton: “Yes, and will be painted black.”
Trev: The wall is there and the area that runs out between the junction of the exit and the wall, have any changes happened there?
Walton: “There are no changes other than the extension, which spans about 230 meters (see purple shaded area above), the second turn is a 360 meter extension, and then the real extension is also a six turn. The junction is another 170 meter long concrete ledge being installed to the right of the driver. To allow those bikes to ride widely if they need to, and then when we get around to turning eight.”
Trev: The place you definitely don’t want to crash is Phillip Island, which is generally fast and bad when it comes to rocking through the rocks at Hayshed.
Walton: “To the driver’s left there is now a 170-meter concrete ledge, at the eighth turn. Now separate from our part that we’re doing for the lap, Phillip Island is also doing some Armco hurdles to the right of the eighth turn. But I was not part of that project.”
Trev: Then we went up around Lukey Heights, the ninth turn, there seems to be a very long stretch of extra two meters of concrete ledge to the driver’s right.
Walton: “Right now, we have a 310 meter concrete ledge that extends from the entrance of the ninth turn all the way to near the exit. Right in front of the driver’s right exit.”
Trev: There’s a lot going on there, and are there any changes you’re responsible for, in the 10th turn audience area? I think I saw some ground elevation change there, do you know anything about that?
Walton: “There is nothing there but work that has been done on the precipice, and just leveling or tapering the gravel trap to bring in that precipice. To the right of the driver at the ninth turn. There’s no other work on turn 10 other than what we did in 2019, I think, from memory. Where we extended the concrete apron over the bend there, if you recall.
Trev: So now we’re speeding up and going around turn 11 and then actually speeding up as we run towards turn 12, I see on this map here we have a new concrete ledge 2m long at the exit of 11 (the area shaded in purple on the image below) and almost all of the outside of turn 11, towards 12 and then there is a light blue shading and then a kind of purple shading, can you tell us the changes there? I believe the fence has moved back a bit?
Walton: “This is like turn one, it’s an important piece of work, it’s an extension to turn 11 and 12 exits, and there’s a mix of modded elements in this area, including the extension of the gravel trap is pink.”
Trev: Light blue is the existing color and pink/purple is where we have extended it so far?
Walton: “Go ahead, stay on the driver’s right as you enter the entrance of turn 11, there is a concrete ledge (thin purple shaded area), go about half way through, but the fundamental changes will drag on. 11 to 12 ft long, is the installation of concrete barriers, tire bundles, conveyor belts and debris barriers, and it is clear that the purpose of the debris barrier is to protect both riders and spectators in the location. This. At the speed at which the bikes are going around this particular turn.”
Trev: Do you have any figures on how far back the actual fence has been?
Walton: “So there are about 205 fence panels that will be brought in, which are currently being built, it will happen in two phases. Due to the fabrication timeframe, we were only able to complete about 60 meters worth of fence before finishing work later this month. This will be finished by the end of this month, then we will continue to build and install the fence in front of the MotoGP, that’s it. There are an equal number of concrete barriers, to support those debris fence panels, and also the obvious FIA/FIM similarities to the pre-existing properties, brand new barriers, fence panels brand new and the concrete barriers come from the F1 track. Tire bundles and conveyors are also taken from the F1 track. So we were able to apply those assets to support this build, which is good because Formula 1 has an FIA Class 1 license, similar to the FIM Class A regulations for MotoGP. “
Trev: So I guess where we are at the moment, there are no real changes to the track, when we drive it, all the changes involved are regional, so the This won’t affect lap records or lap times or turns, it’s simply improving safety for wide runners.
Walton: “That’s absolutely true, its sole purpose is to improve track safety and one of the other final fundamental changes is a 325-meter concrete shield for left-hand riders when you take turn one. So that’s substantial. It’s not on the back of the report that a driver veered off course while going down the grassy bank, and you can imagine it as a bull running over it, even though the cliff is fairly flat. flat, obviously concrete is better than grass, so it just prevents the driver from being thrown from the car there at high speed.
“So that’s why it was installed in that location, for that purpose, because it actually happened a few years ago, when a rider was thrown off his bike one by one. them because they go too wide. So that’s one of those. That was the core scope of the work over a six-week period. There are over 300 tons of additional gravel that we are installing on both turns 1 and 11 and 12, notably a huge amount of soil that has also been removed, estimated at 25,000 cubic metres. Can you understand that when you stand there and see the soil piled up and you ask where all this comes from?
“You start to realize especially at the age of 11 and 12, it’s a definite change, you stand there and go, damn it, you don’t even realize what it was like before. It’s a lot deeper, a big extension of the flow now. We’ve also included a major roadway along that back, which is an improvement and also a walkway for the audience behind that, so that obviously improves things for the event, which This will be helpful. So that’s a great job and the land we’ve removed, much of it, hopefully all of it, will be repurposed around the site to improve the overall site in various locations. , including parking, viewing mounds, are still to be determined, but only in areas where we want to improve the build for the MotoGP event. The circuit has really fit into that front, we’ve come up with a number of solutions to improve site-wide coatings.
Trev: This is going to be a dilemma for you, and I assume you won’t be able to comment one way or the other…. but I have heard rumors that this track is likely to be planned for rebuild in 2024, followed by new bunker garages and infrastructure works coming in 2025…?
Walton: “Probably impossible to report in any way, a lot of work remains to be done to see if those things actually happen. They are certainly things that are being considered, but nothing has been formalized on those fronts yet.”
Trev: Thanks for going through that thoroughly with us, I’ll see you at MotoGP!
