No place like home: Laurens van Hoepen’s dream race weekend

Laurens van Hoepen is the next driver on the 2024 grid to give us their idea for what would be their dream race weekend.It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the Dutch driver picked Zandvoort as the venue for his ideal race, but he has a few new ideas on what could be improved to make it better than ever before.Here is what the ART Grand Prix driver came up with…WHERE WOULD THE RACE BE HELD?“I think my dream weekend would be Zandvoort in front of all the Dutch fans, I’d be P1 in Practice, P1 in Qualifying and P1 in the Sprint and Feature Races, all the fastest laps in the races as well. “I’d change the paddock for sure, because I think it’s a bit too small. So I’d make it bigger so more people can fit in and it would be easier to run a weekend there.”WHAT WOULD THE TRACK LOOK LIKE?“The track itself is quite nice but maybe I’d put some new asphalt down in sector two though. But that’s it I guess. I think the track is quite cool as it is. I might make it a bit longer actually. “It’s hard to find a place to extend the track but maybe after T7 and then you go further into the dunes and then come back for Turns 9 and 10. “So after you go through the banked corner of T3, you do that little snake section into the right-hander and then you just go further straight and go into the dunes and then come back into the original sector at Sector 2.”Van Hoepen says he'd update Zandvoort for his dream weekendDAY RACE OR NIGHT RACE?“Oooh. It’s in the Netherlands so probably a day race because in the night it’s probably too cold.”WET OR DRY RACE?“A lovely 25 degrees with a tiny breeze.”WHAT TYRES WOULD YOU BRING?“Depends on the deg of the Soft tyres but I’d bring the Soft tyres with no degradation.”READ MORE: Sophia Floersch: My Greatest InfluencesWHICH CELEBRITIES WOULD YOU INVITE AS YOUR GUESTS?“That’s a good one, let me think about that. I would probably invite… let me check who I’m following on Instagram. “Probably a huge movie star, Leonardo DiCaprio. Then we could also invite Kendall Jenner, maybe someone from racing too."Who’s someone who doesn’t usually come to the races? Ahh, Kimi Raikkonen! I'd bring Kimi back and ask him for some tips.”The ART driver would also adjust the circuit to make it longer than its standard layoutWHICH MUSIC ARTISTS WOULD YOU HAVE ACROSS THE WEEKEND?“Coldplay. That’s sick, that would be cool. I wanted to go to a concert of theirs this year but didn’t have the time so it would be a lot easier if they came to the track for a race weekend instead.”WHAT WOULD THE PODIUM LOOK LIKE?“Maybe have it so the podium hangs over the track a bit and so you’re closer to the fans.”READ MORE: Non-stop action around Silverstone: Christian Mansell’s dream race weekendWHAT WOULD THE TROPHIES LOOK LIKE?“I’d change the trophies to make them a bit different. They would be huge, a bit like the Le Mans one but a Zandvoort version. You’d need both hands to hold them up.”ANYTHING ELSE?“We could add something fun in. Have a contest so the winners get to do a reverse race around the track. In the old days they used to do something like this. So fans can enter to race in an old car that doesn’t matter if you crash it, because I think there’s going to be a lot of crashing.”