Construction of the 3.4km Hamilton V8 street circuit is on schedule and more than 70,000 hours have been put into the construction of barriers, grandstand fencing and other paraphernalia.
"All the pre-event barriers are in place but locals can still get in and out," said event organiser Steve Vuleta.
"The
tyre barriers are all but erected and we'll finish those [tonight]. We're bang on schedule."
It's been a huge undertaking for Hamilton, Vuleta and his team. To complete the circuit in time for Friday's practice, 2000 4.5 tonne concrete blocks will have been placed, 9km of fencing will have been erected, four pedestrian bridges placed over the track, 9000 tonnes of steel and concrete poured and erected and an endurance race (250km) worth of cable laid.
Come race weekend, spectators will be able see these bellowing behemoths reaching speeds up to 250km/h on what in essence are suburban streets. Now that's exciting.
Circuit: 3.4km, eight turns (five right, two left and one chicane); Top speed in excess of 240km/h (pit straight); three areas where speeds will exceed 200km/h; three distinctive and real overtaking opportunities.
Concrete barriers: 2000 x 4m blocks, each weighing 4.5 tonnes, more than 9000 tonnes of concrete and steel, equates approximately to 1200 concrete truckloads.
Debris fence panels: 2300 x 4m panels - 9.2 km.
Tyre barriers: 8800 tyres bundled into 1760 stacks of five; 40,000 bolts, 40,000 nuts and 80,000 washers required to assemble tyre barriers.
Steel: More than 350 tonnes of steel has been used in the construction of the four over-track pedestrian bridges, three over-track gantries, the pit structure, race control and concrete barrier pins, reinforcing and debris fencing.
Build: Circuit build and event infrastructure construction over an eight-week period (including deconstruction) will exceed 100,000 man hours. Six weeks for circuit build and two weeks for deconstruction.
