Thomson Road Circuit - The Other Singapore GP
Singapore wasn’t always about bright lights, big city, and racing as the world sleeps. While modern Formula One arrived with fanfare in September 2008, Singapore has a much longer racing history – and a second grand prix circuit.
The Thomson Road Circuit, on Singapore’s Old Thomson Road, was the epicentre of motorsport in southeast Asia during the 1960s and early 1970s, when it played hosts to grands prix across a range of formula, and was home to races on two wheels and four.
At the time, the island nation of Singapore was still a member of the Malaysian Federation, and in the early 1960s it was Thomson Road that played host to the Formula Libre Malaysian Grand Prix. The race died a death in 1973, when complaints of traffic disruption around the street circuit, combined with a spate of fatal accidents, were viewed as out-weighing the benefits of hosting the event.
In its heyday, Thomson Road was a 4.865km clockwise street circuit incorporating one long straight, several hairpins, and two sweeping corners, in addition to a number of chicanes and smaller bends.
Thomson Road was not a track for the faint-hearted. A street race in modern Singapore has very little in common with an event in the same city fifty years ago: footage of the 1966 Grand Prix sees cars powering around streets that have more in common with a rally stage than they do any modern concept of a racetrack, street circuit or otherwise.
Closely lined with a mix of trees and homes, Thomson Road afforded drivers little in the way of run-off, and accidents were common. The 1972 and 1973 grands prix were both marred by fatal collisions, and they were not the first races in Singapore to be so affected.
The circuit weaved its way through narrow streets lined with street lamps and family homes, before breaking out into the relatively more open spaces of roads lined with densely-packed trees. Cars powered down a mile-long main straight before roaring off into a winding section of undulating track that featured numerous blind crests, some of which featured corners taken at speeds approaching 200kph. Further complicating matters were the deep ditches that lined the narrow road, and which caught many unawares.
The Snakes and Devil’s Bend, two stretches on the narrow and undulating return to the main straight, were popular with spectators as guaranteed accident black spots.
The original Singapore circuit was not a Formula One track. Rather, it primarily played host to Formula Libre and mixed category events, another factor that contributed to the inherent risk of racing there.
Open category racing in the early sixties saw a mis-matched selection of machinery and talent take to the track, and incidents of faster cars coming across slower rivals in blind dips were not uncommon. But the danger of racing at Thomson Road only added to its reputation as a circuit, and by the 1970s drivers from Australia and New Zealand were travelling to Singapore with a view to mastering the circuit.
One of the most successful drivers in Thomson Road history was Australia’s Graeme Lawrence, who won the 1969, 1970, and 1971 Formula Libre grands prix behind the wheel of three different machines: a McLaren, a Ferrari, and a Brabham.
In its heyday, Thomson Road was the place to be seen for motorsports fans around southeast Asia, much as today’s Singapore Grand Prix is a highlight on the modern F1 calendar. The track, one of the fastest on the world racing calendar, regularly attracted crowds of more than 100,000 people.
And in those crowds could be found some of the men and women behind the Singtel Singapore Grand Prix, a generation of young motorsports fans cemented by the presence of a race in their backyard. The race they have provided is very different to the grand prix they grew up with, but one thing is certain: Singapore is a racing city.
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If you’re interested in embedding video, there’s footage of the 1966 Singapore Grand Prix (not F1) on this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sVdEcGLgTk
Kate Walker