Tilke-Designed Circuits

[jab]

But both Arnoux and Villeneuve used the paved run-off during their battle. That is my point

[ptclaus98]

The Cape Town design isn't bad.

[ECW Dan Selby]

Originally Posted by jab

But both Arnoux and Villeneuve used the paved run-off during their battle. That is my point

Yeh, you're right.

Isn't it ironic how they were sitting on a good formula (from safety perspective) all along without realising it?

Selby

[Purist]

I think we can throw a number of factors in the pot. For the cars, the aero, at the very least, needs to be less sensitive to disturbances.

The new tracks, except for Singapore, are too perfectly smooth. The new section at Bahrain though, showed us a glimpse of what bumps can do to qugment the on-track competition. Also, a lot of Tilke's designs lack character and have few good, challenging, fast corners. They're also relatively flat and absurdly wide, which gives them that unimpressive, "flat and easy" appearance to spectators; if the organizers have the money for those outrageous pit buildings, they've got money to add in some hills. This isn't helped either by those huge paved run-offs that don't penalize mistakes, keep the scenery in another zip code, limit camera angles, and destroy a lot of the sense of speed because you have almost no reference against which to judge the speed of the cars.

Tilke's tracks are often very much corner-straight-corner. That is to say that they don't often have long, continuous sequences of quick corners/curves; Valencia's Turn 17-25 section is Tilke's one big break from that sort of formula. Shanghai and Istanbul try to do this, without much success. Bahrain's new section is mostly slow to medium-speed corners all just strung together, but is really just a highly technical section plunked in purely for the sake of having one. Silverstone and Spa probably provide the best examples of the sorts of sequences Iof corners I'm looking for, and at Spa, you 're simply, hardly ever going in a straight line anywhere on that track.

This all leads into the racing in that, aside from Tilke's tracks being so smooth in surface, you don't have those quick corner combinations, which can get a driver off-balance or allow the guy behind to get a better exit using a different line, leading into overtaking zones. And then, a number of Tilke's designs have added, niggly little extra bends, kinks, or whatever that foul up the run of the guy behind and/or that compromise the line into the next corner and prevent an overtaking maneuver that way.

[ptclaus98]

Originally Posted by ptclaus98

The Cape Town design isn't bad.

What I meant by this was that if it run counter clockwise instead, it could have been a nice little track. I counted 3 overtaking spots using the cc direction.

[blaffer]

Exciting Australian GP today.
Apart from a bit of rain at the start, this was a dry race. But in contrast to Bahrain, a race with quite a lot of overtakings. Melbourne never disappoints. Why can't Tilke design tracks like this?

[dsg]

I disagree, once he track dried out it was very close to Bahrain.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by dsg

I disagree, once he track dried out it was very close to Bahrain.

I agree and that's what you get without the pitstops to break up the racing.

[werner]

I like the piece of track added in Bahrein. At least from the onboard-shots, you could really see the drivers working for their money. As an extra bonus, in the slow sections, you don't need the complete desert for runoff, and still have a safe track. If there where any spectators, they could have been pretty close. As a bonus they also made the slow section on a sort of hilly section of the land.
I firmly believe the most important aspect in the lack of overtaking really is the aerodynamics of the cars. I saw the Australian V8-supercarchampionship in Bahrein, and there was plenty of overtaking.

[johntt]

Originally Posted by werner

I like the piece of track added in Bahrein. At least from the onboard-shots, you could really see the drivers working for their money. As an extra bonus, in the slow sections, you don't need the complete desert for runoff, and still have a safe track. If there where any spectators, they could have been pretty close. As a bonus they also made the slow section on a sort of hilly section of the land.
I firmly believe the most important aspect in the lack of overtaking really is the aerodynamics of the cars. I saw the Australian V8-supercarchampionship in Bahrein, and there was plenty of overtaking.

Exactly.

To paraphrase Clinton's 1992 election slogan: "Its the aero stupid!"

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by werner

I firmly believe the most important aspect in the lack of overtaking really is the aerodynamics of the cars. I saw the Australian V8-supercarchampionship in Bahrein, and there was plenty of overtaking.

Interestingly, Tilke was a former touring car driver, that might explain why V8-Supercars thrive on his tracks as opposed to F1 cars, he can directly relate to them.

[Jamesy-18]

Any retired F1 driver want a job designing tracks then? :P

The only half decent Tilke track is Istanbul. Shame that there is hardly any interest for the sport out there. Right track, wrong country.

[Fox89]

Originally Posted by Jamesy-18

Any retired F1 driver want a job designing tracks then? :P

The only half decent Tilke track is Istanbul. Shame that there is hardly any interest for the sport out there. Right track, wrong country.

And Sepang! I am stoic in my defence of Sepang, I think it's a great track. Too much run off, granted, but the actual track bit is sweet.

[bjohnsonsmith]

These Tilke tracks seem so sterile.

[Andy77]

Tilke still drives at the Nordschleife, usually in cars close to touring specs

[bjohnsonsmith]

Maybe he should have a go in an F1 car round one of his tracks.

[Purist]

I don't think a Lamboghini Murcielago is "touring specs". And it is sad, that for all his laps around the Nordschleife, his F1 tracks come out looking the way they do.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Are those laps around the original Nürburgring or the 1984 Ersatzring?

[Purist]

Tilke still drives his Lambo around the Nordschleife, just like I said, so it IS the old circuit, with ~1000ft difference in elevation and ~170 corners.

[Quintin03]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

Are those laps around the original Nürburgring or the 1984 Ersatzring?

Ersatzring? You mean the GP strecke? They're laps of both tracks at once. Last year our "friend" Herman drove for the team which got pole position in the 24 hours of Nürburg. He had an advantage ofcourse as the first two corners were designed by himself.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by Quintin03

Ersatzring.

That was the nick name given to the track that replaced the old GP track in 1984.

[Purist]

Another new Tilke track is coming up, and there have been some interesting comments in the Austin and Korea threads, which I didn't want to derail by turning those into dedicated track discussions.

Before I get into that though, here is a rough rundown of the unofficial poll results that I've tabulated:
1. Sepang, Malaysia (1999)- 2
2. Sakhir, Bahrain (2004)- 2
3. Shanghai, China (2004)- 0.5
4. Istanbul, Turkey (2005)- 4.5
5. Valencia, Spain (2008)- 0
6. Marina Bay, Singapore (2008)- 1
7. Yas Island, Abu Dhabi, UAE (2009)- 0

Some people gave two favorites, and I didn't push for just one, so we get some half points in there if you will.

The following "voted" in the initial run of this thread:
Yannick
Jab
Sodemo
Chunterer
Miatanut
Olly83
Fox89
Jhamilton
Jamesy-18

Adding myself to the total, that's 10 in all.

[Purist]

A number of things brought on this decision to pull this thread out. We have seen the new Austin F1 track, though Lord knows if it will ever be built. We have seen in more and more detail what the Korea track looks like, and a bit of what it drives like thanks to Karun's trial run. And then there have been a few other short discussions in those respective threads about what makes and effects a good track, along with a few mentions of Tilke, and some thoughts on track average speeds.

First off, fundamentally, for a track to have atmosphere, soul, or whatever you wish to call it, it MUST have visually apparent surroundings. This means that it has buildings, stands, hills, trees, you name it close enough in to the track itself to be VERY apparent to the eye whether you're there in person or watching the races on TV. Without this, the track looks like, and is percieved as, a barren wasteland. Obviously, the huge run-offs, and especially huge paved run-offs, do NOT help the situation here.

Going from there, the huge, paved run-offs do NOT adequately punish mistakes and downright stupid stuff that drivers are currently able to get away with in a number of cases. These run-offs also create tracks with practically NO intimidation factor and radically reduced need for driver precision. And truth be told, these tracks let the mediocre, relatively speaking, get by in F1. In all honesty, I don't care if all 24 starters finish the GP. I just care that there are "enough" good battles throughout the race, with the race being held on a good and attractive-looking circuit. Hell, in the midst of a truly enthralling on-track battle, my focus is such that I simply lose the awareness that there even are any other cars on track.

[stripedcat]

The only Tilke track that I like is Sepang in Malaysia. Firstly it is a nice long track(like Spa, Suzuka), plus it actually has a decent flow to it in the corners. Okay there aren't really any high speed corners, but they are decent. The two long straights aid overtaking, and it is good that it is a medium downforce circuit. Okay we have had a few dull races there, but a lot of them have been good. The setting and those two beautiful Asian style towers add to the track. I hope we keep Sepang in the calendar. Add my vote to Sepang.

Turn 8 at Turkey is great, sadly one corner doesn't make a great track. The rest of it doesn't really excite me.

There are a number of things wrong with track design nowadays - no bumps(too dangerous, apparently), chicanes everywhere(not allowed high speed corners), no banked corners(Indy and Zaandvort, also Mexico's last corner).

As has been mentioned many times the big problem is the "dirty air" coming off the back of F1 cars. To be fair it is a problem in other forms of single seater racing as well, although it is not as bad as it is in F1. The problem is the more you take the downforce off the cars, the more F1 clever designers think about putting it back in! It is an everlasting battle.

What also hasn't helped is the sequential gearbox. Even Alain Prost said that fluffing gear changes was a great way to overtake - in fact around Monaco it was about the only way to overtake! I accept that it is however unlikely that we'll ever see manual gate type gears in F1 again, nearly every other race formula uses sequential gears nowadays. Plus there would be a safety aspect nowadays.

One thing that could be done to track design is have more banked corners. Cars could follow each other more closely in them because the dirty air wouldn't hit the following car so much. See the recent Indy races. Indeed Silverstone thought about introducing a banked corner. Sadly it didn't happen.

One of the old style tracks I really miss is Österreichring. The A1 Ring was terrible in comparison. I think with some decent run offs, possibly a redesigned chicane at the end of the pit straight, wider track and moving the barriers back at some of the corners you could still have a safe F1 circuit there. Even Alain Prost said that about it. Sadly I accept it will never happen.

I'll have to wait for Korea to see what I think of it.

[Sodemo]

What about this "safer barrier" tech which was supposed to mean less run-off could be used? Was that used at Abu Dubai? Is it being used at Korea?