Zandvoort Full Lap Guide for F1 25: Banked Corners

Zandvoort punishes drivers who treat it like every other circuit, and the reason is simple: two of its corners are banked hard enough to change the physics of the lap. Tarzan at Turn 1 and Arie Luyendyk at Turn 14 both lean the track into the car, and Hugenholtz at Turn 3 is steeper still. Banking adds vertical load without asking anything of your tyres in return, so grip goes up exactly where you normally expect it to run out. The trap is that the banking almost never starts where the corner starts. Brake as though the support is already there and you arrive with the car unloaded and the front tyres asking for something the flat tarmac cannot give.

This guide walks the full lap in F1 25, with the banked sections treated as what they are — separate problems that need their own braking reference and their own line.

What banking actually does to your inputs

Think of banked tarmac as free downforce that costs no drag. On the steep part of Tarzan or Turn 14, the road pushes up into the car, the tyre contact patch is loaded harder, and the grip ceiling rises. Three consequences follow, and all three are things you can see in your own data:

1. Minimum speed is higher than the corner radius suggests. If you are carrying a flat-corner minimum speed through a banked apex, you are leaving lap time on the table, not driving safely.
2. You can be greedier with throttle while still turning. Combined loading that would spin you on the flat is survivable when the banking is holding the car down.
3. The grip is only there while you are on the bank. Cut to the inside kerb early and you step off the steep part onto flatter, sometimes adversely cambered tarmac — mid-corner, at the worst possible moment.

That third point is the one that costs most drivers time at Zandvoort. The instinct to shortcut to the inside is exactly wrong here.

Turn 1 — Tarzan

You arrive at over 300 km/h with DRS open and a slight left drift towards the outside. The braking zone itself is flat. The banking builds through the corner, peaking on the outer half of the exit. So brake conventionally, on the flat, with full initial pressure, and do not talk yourself into a later reference just because you know the corner is banked.

The line: stay wide on entry, all the way to the outside white line. Turn in later than feels natural and aim for a late apex around two-thirds of the way through the arc. As the car rotates, the banking picks it up and you can start unwinding the wheel and feeding throttle earlier than the corner radius alone would allow. Trail the brake in gently — a long, smooth release rather than a sharp one, because you want the front loaded while the banking is still shallow.

The common error is diving for the inside kerb on entry. It looks like the short way round, and it puts you on the flattest part of the corner with a car still asking to turn. You get understeer, then a correction, then a compromised exit onto the long run up to Turn 3.

A useful self-check: if you need a second throttle application on the exit of Tarzan, your apex was too early.

Turns 2 and 3 — Gerlach into Hugenholtz

Gerlach is a short left kink that mostly exists to set up Hugenholtz. Do not overdrive it — a tidy, slightly early exit puts you on the correct side of the road for the Turn 3 entry.

Hugenholtz is the steepest banking on the circuit and it runs uphill and blind. Everything about it fights your instincts: you cannot see the exit, the road falls away from you, and the natural reaction is to slow down more than necessary. Resist it. Brake in a straight line on the approach, then commit to a high line and let the banking do the work. Stay out on the steep part and take a very late apex — the corner opens onto the climb towards Hunserug, so the exit direction matters more than the apex speed.

Reference for your own comparison: most drivers find they are carrying 10-15 km/h less through Hugenholtz than the car will take, purely because the blind entry makes them tentative. Do a few laps deliberately entering faster than you think is sensible and see where the actual limit is.

Turns 4 to 7 — Hunserug, Slotemaker and Scheivlak

Turn 4 is a quick uphill right you can take with a lift and a firm turn-in. Keep the car settled through the Slotemaker section; these are rhythm corners and any snatched steering input here shows up as a slower Scheivlak entry.

Scheivlak at Turn 7 is the corner that separates confident drivers from fast ones. It is fast, downhill, blind on entry, and the road drops away as you commit. There is no banking to help you. A small lift or a light brush of brake, one committed turn-in, and then hold it — no mid-corner steering corrections, because the compression through the corner means any correction arrives as a snap. Pick a visual reference on the outside of the entry and use it every lap; you cannot eyeball this corner off the apex because you cannot see the apex.

Turns 8 to 13 — Mastersbocht to Hans Ernst

Turn 8 and 9 form Mastersbocht: a left flick into a longer right that runs downhill. Brake earlier than you want to here, because the downhill gradient extends your stopping distance and the exit feeds the following straight. Sacrificing a little entry speed for a straighter exit is the correct trade.

Turn 10 is a slow left that sets the run to the Hans Ernst complex. Turns 11 and 12 are a double right, and the second one is the one that matters — treat 11 as a long, patient entry to 12 rather than two separate corners. Apex 11 late, hold a tight mid-corner, and use the full width on the exit of 12.

Turn 13 is a short right that needs a clean exit above all else, because it defines where you enter the final banked corner.

Turn 14 — Arie Luyendyk

The final corner is banked and long, and it is the single biggest lap-time lever on the circuit because it feeds the main straight and the DRS zone. The banking rises as you go, so unlike Tarzan the support arrives early and stays.

You want a wide entry, one smooth turn-in, and then progressive throttle from very early in the corner. In qualifying trim this is close to a flat-out corner for an F1 car; the limit is usually driver confidence rather than grip. The line matters enormously: stay on the steep outer portion and let the banking carry you. Clip the inside too early and you unload the car halfway round, lose the banking, and have to ease off — which costs you speed for the entire following straight, not just for the corner.

Check your exit trajectory. You should be arriving at the pit wall side of the track by the start line, throttle pinned, with the wheel already straight. If you are still correcting the wheel as you cross the line, the apex was wrong.

Turning this into lap time

Work the three banked corners separately from the rest of the lap. Pick one, run ten laps of only that corner, and watch two traces: your minimum speed and the shape of your throttle application. Banked corners reward an earlier, more progressive throttle than anything else on the circuit, and the data will tell you plainly whether you are taking that or not.

If you would rather have that read back to you while you drive, P1 is an AI race engineer that reads your telemetry live and coaches the exact corners and braking points costing you time.

The overall Zandvoort lesson: the banking is an asset you have to stay on to use. Wide entries, late apexes, and patience with the wheel through Turns 1, 3 and 14 are worth more than anything you can find in the flat sections.