One corner at Zandvoort produced five incidents, two safety cars and a penalty in two days
The banked turn three caught out five cars across Race 1 and Race 2, and shaped how the GT World Challenge Europe weekend ended
Five separate incidents at Zandvoort this weekend happened at the same corner. Two of them brought out the safety car, one ended with a ten second stop and go, and one car was caught there on both days.
The corner is the Hugenholtzbocht, turn three, and it has shaped this entire GT World Challenge Europe round.
Nineteen degrees of banking at the third corner
The Hugenholtzbocht is named after John Hugenholtz, chairman of the Dutch Auto Racing Club and the circuit’s first track director in 1949. In its current form it is banked at 19 degrees, one of two banked corners built by Jarno Zaffelli when the circuit was rebuilt for the return of Formula 1, along with the Arie Luyendijkbocht at turn 14.
It is the third corner of a 4.259 kilometre lap with 14 turns, which means cars arrive there in the opening seconds of a race, still bunched, still on cold tyres, and still sorting out who is ahead of whom. Our Zandvoort circuit guide covers the rest of the lap. The banking rewards a driver who commits and punishes one who does not.
Three cars were caught out there on Saturday
In Race 1 the number 31 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 Evo stopped at the Hugenholtzbocht and the safety car was deployed. In the same sequence the number 71 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo lost control at the same place, took damage and later shed its bonnet on track.
Later in that race the number 6 GetSpeed Mercedes-AMG was briefly left facing the wrong way at the same corner before continuing.
A spin, a safety car and a stop and go on Sunday
Race 2 was barely a minute old when Christopher Haase slid the number 84 Eastalent Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II at the Hugenholtzbocht and made contact with another car. The safety car came out for the second time in two days for an incident at turn three, although this one was cleared quickly.
The heaviest consequence came near the end. Thomas Fleming, in the Garage 59 McLaren 720S GT3 Evo that had won Race 1 the day before, pushed the number 31 aside at the Hugenholtzbocht. The BMW got back to the pits but retired. The stewards called it causing a collision and gave Fleming a ten second stop and go.
With the pit lane transit added to the ten seconds stationary, the penalty cost him around half a minute in the closing stages. He rejoined 25th and finished there. The number 58 went from winning on Saturday to 25th on Sunday, and the moment that decided it happened at turn three.
The same BMW was caught there twice
The number 31, shared by Amaury Cordeel and Jordan Pepper, has the strangest record of the weekend. On Saturday it was the car stopped at the Hugenholtzbocht that brought out the safety car in Race 1. On Sunday it was the car pushed out of Race 2 at the same corner by someone else.
Team WRT lost two of its three cars across the weekend. The number 32 retired from Race 1 with a technical failure, the number 31 was put out on Sunday, and only the number 46 came away with a result, fourth with Valentino Rossi.
The corner arrives before anyone has settled
The pattern is not hard to see. Four of the five incidents happened either in the opening laps or in traffic. A banked corner three turns into the lap, taken at speed with a blind exit, is where a 45-car field is still deciding its order.
Add cold tyres at the start, a restart that bunches the field again, and drivers in the four different classes running very different lap times, and turn three is where the compression shows up.
Our count of the damage
Our count for the weekend at one corner: five incidents, two safety cars, one retirement caused by another car, one ten second stop and go, and one bonnet lost on track. No other part of this circuit came close. If you are looking for the single place that decided the shape of this GT World Challenge Europe round, it is not the start line or the pit lane. It is the third corner.
The Sprint Cup does not come back here this season
The Sprint Cup does not come back to Zandvoort this season. The final round is at Barcelona. But the Hugenholtzbocht will keep doing this, because the thing that makes it catch people out is the thing that makes it good: it is fast, it is banked, it comes early, and it does not forgive a driver who arrives there not quite sure of his line.
