F1
Hermann Tilke is a renowned racing circuit designer and the brains behind Istanbul Park, which hosts the next grand prix of this season's rejigged Formula One calendar – get to know his work here.
Hermann Tilke and his team are design pioneers of modern motor racing tracks. Their work has today etched the Tilke name into the history of motorsports everywhere from Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium to the location of this weekend's Formula One Grand Prix at Istanbul Park in Turkey.
We asked Tilke about where his passion for motorsports came from, the little-known aspects of designing a racetrack and his favourite projects in the racing world.
When did you start getting interested in motorsports and what pushed you to start racing yourself?
When I was 16, my uncle invited me to the Nürburgring [in Germany] to watch a race. After that, I caught the motorsports bug and from then on it's never stopped. My only aim became to do this and race myself, but at that time it wasn't possible to race at the age of 16. You could race in karting, but not in cars until you're at least 18-years-old.
When I turned 18, I took my mother's car – a Volkswagen Scirocco – and without her permission I added a roll-cage to it. The car was stock apart from that; no racing tyres, nothing, but I started entering hill climb events and slalom races in it. That was the beginning. After I passed my exams and finished school, I worked for three months and all the money I earned went to a real racing car – a Mini Cooper.
Istanbul Park is making a one-off comeback to the F1 calendar this year. It's been touted as one of your best works and we're all in love with the famous Turn 8, but what do you think is an unappreciated or underrated part of the circuit?
Maybe it's not a one-off return, you never know. I like Istanbul very much and it's good to be there. Apart from Turn 8, I like the section from Turn 1 to Turn 5 very much. It has elevation and very interesting, different corners.
How did you get involved in the Istanbul Park project and how was the process for picking a location?
I remember getting a call from the then-president [Mümtaz Tahincioğlu] of the Turkish Automobile Federation and he invited me to visit the site on which they proposed building a Formula One track. I had a look and I was instantly very excited, because the land had hills and it looked like a really nice place to build a good F1 circuit – it had a third dimension, so to speak.
When they asked my opinion about the land, I told them I liked it and then any potential alternatives were never considered.
It was also a difficult project, especially when we were in the design process. We made a big model of the site, 2.5m square, just to understand the land better. The first ideas were then laid on the model, as wool felts. We utilised the topography of the land to come up with this track and the model helped a lot, because it's a physical thing that you can touch and imagine.
Were you always mindful of the design aspect of circuits?
I wasn't thinking about circuit design back then, I was just interested in pure racing. The only opinion I had about tracks was probably valid for all other racing drivers: when I was winning, I liked the track. When I wasn't, I didn't like the track.
The Red Bull Ring is a great track
Your first commissioned circuit work was transforming Austria's Österreichring to the A1 Ring, which then became the Red Bull Ring. How do you remember that project now, looking back?
Actually, my first complete track design was the Sachsenring [in Germany], for MotoGP. I did that project in 1995 and the A1 Ring, now the Red Bull Ring, was my first F1 project, which was finished in 1997. The Red Bull Ring is a fantastic track. It creates more great racing than maybe all of the other tracks. You can overtake and it's not an easy track to master, although it looks easy from an outside view. Formula One drivers can attest to that. It's a really tricky circuit to drive, which makes it very good for exciting racing.
Maybe they should do a double-header there every year...
Maybe, but when you look at the history of the Red Bull Ring, it's almost always provided us with amazing races.
How do you compare the Hermann Tilke of that time and the Hermann Tilke of now?
It's a very difficult comparison to make. As a company, Tilke Enginers & Architects have developed a lot. We had eight to 10 engineers back then and now we have more than 150 engineers and architects, so everything's always changing and developing. In terms of the circuit design, that's also changed significantly. The safety regulations have changed, along with the regulations of the cars, of course.
The changes in the 2020 Formula One calendar has led to many old-school circuits holding races, like Mugello, Imola and Nürburgring. The Tuscan GP was an exciting race, but had its frightening moments regarding the safety of the drivers. How do you think excitement and safety should balance in a track?
First of all, nowadays the safety is very important. No one would want to see a driver getting hurt and the FIA is doing a lot of things to ensure driver safety. To do that, they work on the safety of the cars and the tracks. Still, racing is never safe. It will never reach 100 percent safety, it will always remain dangerous.
We all want to see exciting racing, but we also can also watch exciting races on safe circuits and that's what we're striving for. We try to design circuits where it's easy to make mistakes for the drivers. The problem with the Formula One is that the cars and drivers are the absolute best in the world and it's almost impossible to force them into mistakes. We try, though. We strive to make the tracks as tricky as possible, but the drivers work against us.
Your circuit designs are tailor-made for modern Formula One cars with high corner speeds and immense downforce. Will the upcoming rule changes in 2022 affect the design philosophy for future circuits?
Not really, because the circuits are built for almost 50 years of racing, maybe longer. In 50 years, the regulations might have changed 10 times and it wouldn't be sensible to change the tracks when the rules change. It's difficult.
Let's take Turn 8 at Istanbul Park for instance. When we designed it, we made it a very difficult corner, because it's one where you have to think about all its three dimensions. Cars had to be setup specifically to not lose downforce there and that affected their whole lap. Now, with the new aerodynamics of the current cars, I think Turn 8 will be flat out when F1 returns to the circuit on November 15.
Maybe after the car changes in 2022, it will be a tricky corner again. If you design a fast corner that's not flat out now, it could be flat out the next year however, so it'' difficult to take the regulations into account.
Were there ideas that were left on the drawing board, or was the design definitive from the very beginning?
Of course, when we design a circuit we entertain different versions and ideas, but we do them internally. We then decide on one. It would be nice to be able to make different tracks without having to decide, but this is a process. We start from nothing, just the land.
Your company has been commissioned to design Formula One, MotoGP and touring car circuits. What's the main difference in designing tracks for those distinct series'?
There are a lot of differences. We usually design a circuit suitable for all disciplines, which is always a compromise. Cars and motorcycles are very different in terms of safety, design, corner configuration. For example, on an F1 track you should always take into account to create overtaking possibilities. For touring cars or GTs, this isn't that crucial, because they can overtake more easily.
The best thing would be to build a different circuit for each discipline. If you design a GT-only track, you can make it more extreme; a Formula One track should be smoother; a MotoGP track should have a different corner configuration and more safety. If a car crashes into the guardrail at 50kph an hour, it's nothing, but for motorcycles it's dangerous.
How does the process work while designing street circuits, as opposed to purpose built tracks?
It has more details. You have the housing and things you cannot touch or modify. It's much more restrictive. You can't demolish a house to make way for a corner, you take what you have and make something out of it. It's a lot of detailed work. We have other regulations, too. Safety and so on. When you design a street circuit for Formula One, you're only taking professional drivers into account, so you can bring the cars close to the barriers on the exit of the corners. If the F1 cars don't need a runoff there, you have the liberty to put a barrier.
Like the first section of the Baku City Circuit?
Yes, absolutely. Also, the uphill section there is very fast, yet we have the barriers just on the edge of the track. This is only for professionals.
You don't have to worry about track day drivers there...
Yes, and this is very important when you're designing a permanent track. That's one of the main revenue streams that the track owners have. They hold track days, where they have amateur drivers on track and you wouldn't want them to destroy their cars in the first turn.
If you could design a circuit with no restrictions on location, form, racing series or anything whatsoever, what would be the three or four elements that you would include?
A lot of elevation change. A completely three-dimensional track makes the car lighter, like the Nordschleife does.
For example, we have a design in the hills close to Tokyo called Magarigawa Club. It's a very hilly track made for car enthusiasts who want to have fun and you can do a lot of things to ensure that. Bilster Berg in Germany is also very extreme and really popular among car enthusiasts and club drivers.
I also like when the cars get very light, almost jumping in the braking zone. One part of Nordschleife is like that and the Bathurst track in Australia also has a section like this. I like that need to be very careful under braking – those elements make the racing experience really fun.
As a motorsports fan yourself, what are your favourite tracks not designed by you?
Spa-Francorchamps [in Belgium], of course. Nordschleife [in Germany] is one of the most interesting circuits in the world. Bathurst, too. I did some races there and it was very challenging.
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