JANUARY 3, 2008

How to light up F1

The Singapore Grand Prix organisers have been giving details of how they intend the light the street circuit when Formula 1 holds its first night race on September 28 next year.

Singapore GP

The Singapore Grand Prix organisers have been giving details of how they intend the light the street circuit when Formula 1 holds its first night race on September 28 next year.

Lighting specialists Valerio Maioli SPA of Ravenna, Italy, has designed a bespoke, state-of-the-art lighting system for the event with the intention being to provide sufficient light for the drivers while minimising glare and reflections from a wet surface or from spray created by other cars.

The system will feature a total of 1600 lighting projectors attached to aluminium trusses, which will be suspended 10 metres above the track on vertical steel pylons which will be mounted on prefabricated concrete blocks, which will be placed behind the barriers at intervals of 32m.

This will involve a total of 240 steel pylons and a mind boggling 108,423m of cables. The system will be powered by 12 twin-power generators, each located in a sound-proof container. Should one of the generators fail, the other generators will provide a back-up power by default. Each generator will also have its own engineer on standby whenever they are in operation.

The total power required for this will be 3.18 Megawatts, but the resulting light will be four times brighter than the floodlighting in normal sports stadia.

The entire circuit will be lit up in this way, including the run-off areas. These will not be as bright as the track itself in order to avoid confusing the drivers.