Kyalami

(UPDATED: May 12, 2012)

Perhaps the best race track in Africa, South Africa's Kyalami Grand Prix Circuit is a technical racing course with some pretty smooth corners along with some tough corners. The track can be found in Midrand, Gauteng, South Africa. It was opened in 1961. It has played host many times to the South African Grand Prix in Formula 1, starting in 1967. This would be the new track for the South African Grand Prix, replacing the former venue, the Prince George Circuit. There was controversy starting in 1985 when there was apartheid in 1985. It ended in 1991 as F1 returned there for the final two F1 Grands Prix in 1992 and 1993. Today's Kyalami features 13 corners. Most of the edges of the course have curbing all around, even on the straights. It is over 2.6 miles (4.2 kilometers) long. The only major series that races this course nowadays is World Superbike.

--- Kyalami ---

Here is a track map of this course. This configuration has been used ever since 1990:


^ from: allf1.info - Kyalami served as the home of the F1 South African Grand Prix for many years. Today, it is mostly a solid venue in World Superbike.

--- A Lap of Kyalami ---

No matter whether racing a car or a motorcycle, this course is a handful for you to race. A lot of the corners aren't extremely challenging. There are a lot of smooth corners. But of course, there are those really slow corners that will really get you braking hard. There are lots of elevation changes as well.

You begin down the Brilliant Straight into a moderate right-hand kink. Afterwards, are three left-hand corners. Light to moderate braking is needed for Turn 1 (Total), but you'd better be ready to take on the slower Turn 2 and even slower Turn 3. It's a long blast down to the smooth Turn 4 (Budget). You go a bit uphill heading into the rather blind Turn 5 (Yellow Pages). That uphill becomes downhill when Turn 6 comes along. Turns 7 and 8 are both fairly smooth and don't require any serious braking. Turn 9 (Westbank), however, definitely requires heavy braking. The road after Turn 9 is a downhill blast leading to the smooth Turn 10 before having to brake hard into Turn 11. A blast down Turn 11 leads to a very slow right-left chicane at Turn 12. The final corner is a sharp corner leading to the Start/Finish line.

And here is a video lap of this course:






So there you are- Kyalami. It's a very cool track. Did you know that "Kyalami" is Zulu for "My Home?" (Source: Wikipedia) Thank you for reading!

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