Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Sentul International Circuit

The Sentul Circuit in Indonesia is an 11-turn road course that is 2.56 miles in length. The course is located just 26.10 miles from the Indonesian capital of Jakarta. The course allows for high speed racing with a few decisive corners. Everything from single-seater formula cars to various saloon cars and motorcycles race at this facility. In fact, Sentul was once a stop on the World Superbike tour in the 1990s.

This blog entry concerns perhaps the best (and only?) race track on the world's largest archipelago- Sentul Circuit in Indonesia.





--- Sentul International Circuit ---
Sentul track map
^ from: afos.com - The Sentul Circuit is located in Citeureup, Indonesia. It is basically Indonesia's only true motor racing circuit. CERTAINLY Indonesia's only permanent race course.

Sentul has a blend of speedy sections followed by decisively slow sections. For the most part, Sentul has very little (if any) elevation changes. So it is a mostly flat course that can do a number on your car or motorcycle with each lap.

One Lap Description.
The first corner is a right-hand corner that can be taken at somewhat moderate speed. Turn 2 is more like a sharp left-hand kink that leads onto a long straight. After this, be ready for an off-balance pair of rights. Turn 3 is like Turn 2, only to the right, and Turn 4 is a very sharp right. Turn 5 is a left-hand kink. Turns 6 and 7 make up a sharp right-left chicane. Another long straight follows heading into a sharp right-hand Turn 8 and an equally sharp left at Turn 9. After Turn 9 is a straight leading to a very sharp Turn 10. Good exit speed and a good line will lead to taking Turn 11 without needing to brake. Blast down the front straight, and that's one lap around the 2.56-mile (or 4.12-km) Sentul Circuit.

The lap record at Sentul is 1:15.686. It was set by Bruno Senna in 2008 racing in an F3000/GP2 car for Trust Team Arden. I want to show you a video of how this course looks. The best I could find and use was this onboard lap in 2007.



I did an estimation of how quickly this car went around Sentul. An approximation of how long a lap is in this Porsche Carrera Cuo car is about 1:33.000. Here is one more YouTube video I'll provide to you as a bonus. Check out this from 1997- a World Superbike last lap battle between John Kocinski and Aaron Slight. Here's a hint- both of them race for Castrol Honda, and both are sporting the white bikes with red and green accents:







To learn more about Sentul Circuit, visit Sentul Circuit's official homepage. It has both English and Indonesian text. Thanks for reading!

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