05/06/2018
NEWS STORY
In designing the Sepang, Bahrain, Shanghai, Marina Bay, Yas Marina, Korea and Buddh International circuits - to name but seven - some might claim that Hermann Tilke has done for Formula One what Simon Cowell has done for music.
Love his work or loathe it, since the 1990s, the German has been the 'go-to' man whenever a new addition to the ever expanding calendar meant a new circuit, be it a purpose built race track or street circuit.
Speaking at the FIA Sport Conference in the Philippines, Tilke has welcomed Chase Carey's plan to take F1 into more destination cities, Miami, Hanoi and Copenhagen likely to be added to the calendar in the next couple of years.
"The trend of going to the city tracks is really good for professional sport," he said. "The idea behind it is that it is really very unique, and every city is unique. If you go to the centre of a city then you cannot compare with others.
"We have real street races, we have three in the calendar at the moment," he continued, "Monaco, Singapore and Baku, and all three are so different, so unique.
"This makes it really very interesting and for the high professional series like F1, it is the right way," he added.
However, the German insists that the new street layouts will not only benefit the pinnacle of motorsport.
"We are not building tracks only for the high professional drivers, we are also building tracks for all kind of drivers," he said. "This means amateur drivers, it means a driver who is 60 years old and wishes to drive some kind of racing car or high-performance car. All these people have to be safe, it is not only F1.
"But as you see in Baku, that is a track built only for professional drivers, you could never have old drivers or young drivers on this track and that makes a difference. The investor of a permanent track wants to use a track for everybody, not only F1."