What to do with Tilke

[gorsad]

True, the sight of drivers getting stuck in the graveltrap after a mistake used to be so common years ago. Now they can run wide onto the "747 runway" multiple times, and only have to fear a penalty...

You know the last corner in China, the ESPN commentators said they should just put a big wall there (a bit like Canada "wall of champions") and that'd stop people running wide on purpose.

I think major braking zones like at the ends of straights and high-speed corners should have tarmac run-off.
But all other corners should have grass or gravel (or both). Abu Dhabi has far too much tarmac where there really doesn't need to be, the entire sector 3 is tarmac run-off but none of the corners require it.

I also agree with this, only large braking areas and high speed corners require large run off areas. The rest can have grass, it also improves the looks of the place.

 

[mister dog]

Bump!

Tried out the Moscow Raceway in R3R just now. Got out of the pits and was met with annoyingly tight left-right-left-right 2nd gear corners, hoping for a straight to finally come along.. Immediately I thought to myself: "Tilke!".

Went on Wikipedia and guess what...

 

[Samus]

The main issue I have with Tilke (whether it is him or his brief) is that nearly all of his tracks are filled with the same constant radius corners, many of them 90 degrees or thereabouts. I really disliked what he did with Mexico, this:

Is just Tilke in a nutshell. He's done that double apex corner on so many tracks with small variation. The first one was 7/8 at Sepang, 9/10 at Shanghai, Austin 13/14, Korea 1/2...

Don't even get me started on what he did to Fuji.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Don't even get me started on what he did to Fuji.

It doesn't matter what he did with Fuji - it's a terrible circuit. Or at least a terrible location for a circuit; it's in the rain shadow of Mt. Fuji, so the torrential downpours the inundate the circuit happen regularly.

 

[mister dog]

Yeah that's basically his formula, ultra tight left-right-left-right section, combined with slopes so you can't see the apex in many cases, followed by a double apex corner like you describe, ultra long straight leading into another tight corner and that's one lap around a Tilkedrome.

It doesn't matter what he did with Fuji - it's a terrible circuit. Or at least a terrible location for a circuit; it's in the rain shadow of Mt. Fuji, so the torrential downpours the inundate the circuit happen regularly.

Fuji 80's and 90's were a lot better though. Especially the oldest version with the sweeping corners. Putting that last section in really destroyed the flow IMO.

 

[twitcher]

I have no problem with Tilke. More of his work is good than bad. People hate on him because it's easy to point the finger.

Hockenheim - new circuit is better than the old one. He did the best he could with what he had. People view old Hockenheim with rose colored glasses. If it was still in that old config, and hosting GPs like it is, people would complain that it's boring as hell like they do with Monza, and would want it gone from the calander.

Redbull Ring - not as good as the old one, but still, it turned out great. Again, he did well working with what he had.

Fuji - one of my favorite tracks. I love how it's a track of two faces. The long straight contrasted against the tight 3rd sector lead to setup challenges and great driving duels between cars with different strengths and weaknesses. Old Fuji, with modern race cars, would make for some increadibly boring racing.

Malaysia - fantastic track, and now that it's had some time for things to grow back after construction, I think it looks fantastic as well.

India, Turkey, and Austin are all great tracks. I agree that they look somewhat "sterile", but it's not fair to compare a track that is only a few years old with something like Montreal or Spa. Give COTA 20-50 years to weather, let the trees grow back, etc., then make the comparison.


Like others have said, it's not Tilke who is making the rules he has to design towards. The runoff areas are not on him. Look at Atlanta Motorsport Park, a new track designed by him, and a brilliant one at that (seriously check it out, it's bloody amazing!!). Don't think there's a single paved runoff there at all.

@Samus, that double apex right hander in Mexico was always a double apex right hander, before Tilke redesigned it.

 

[mister dog]

I have no problem with Tilke. More of his work is good than bad. People hate on him because it's easy to point the finger.

Nope people hate on him because all his circuits follow the same principles, and have these over the top Mickey Mouse sections.

Old Hockenheim was great, beautiful, fast and produced a lot of slipstream overtakes. The new one looks like all the others.

 

[twitcher]

Nope people hate on him because all his circuits follow the same principles, and have these over the top Mickey Mouse sections.

Old Hockenheim was great, beautiful, fast and produced a lot of slipstream overtakes. The new one looks like all the others.

That's your opinion. Not all of his tracks have "Mickey Mouse" sections. Where is the Mickey Mouse at Redbull Ring, Austin, Malaysia, or AMP???

Mickey Mouse is just armchair talk for "technical section", like the final sector at Fuji. In modern race cars, technical sections are more challenging than high speed flowing sections. I'm pretty convinced most people on the Internet hate on Fuji because they struggle with it in video games, not because it produces bad racing (Super GT, WEC, and F1 have some amazing races at Fuji).

And get serious, the chicanes at old Hockenheim are as Mickey Mouse as it gets. After Piquet got taken out at the second chicane (can't remember the year...when he went all Karate Kid on the guy who hit him), James Hunt used the exact term, Mickey Mouse, to describe the chicanes at Hockenheim. Like I said, rose coloured specs.

 

[mister dog]

That's your opinion. Not all of his tracks have "Mickey Mouse" sections. Where is the Mickey Mouse at Redbull Ring, Austin, Malaysia, or AMP???

Personal opinion yes of course, and with regards to the A1 ring, he basically just shortened the pit straight, and cut off the left part replacing it with one straight. Of course that straight has to end in a tight corner because that's another of his design rules to promote overtaking. He also replaced the Jochen Rindt Kurve, which was one of the most exciting corners of the old Osterreichring.

Mickey Mouse is just armchair talk for "technical section", like the final sector at Fuji. In modern race cars, technical sections are more challenging than high speed flowing sections. I'm pretty convinced most people on the Internet hate on Fuji because they struggle with it in video games, not because it produces bad racing (Super GT, WEC, and F1 have some amazing races at Fuji).

I'm talking of a driving perspective yes, the last section in Fuji sucks due to these overly tight corners following in close succession. There's technical sections and overdoing it, and with Tilke he has a tendency to overdo it.

And get serious, the chicanes at old Hockenheim are as Mickey Mouse as it gets. After Piquet got taken out at the second chicane (can't remember the year...when he went all Karate Kid on the guy who hit him), James Hunt used the exact term, Mickey Mouse, to describe the chicanes at Hockenheim. Like I said, rose coloured specs.

That was more of a make do chicane. In latter years they replaced that with the Ostcurve which was great fun. All 3 chicanes in that era were nice both for the drivers as for the spectators.

 

[twitcher]

Personal opinion yes of course, and with regards to the A1 ring, he basically just shortened the pit straight, and cut off the left part replacing it with one straight. Of course that straight has to end in a tight corner because that's another of his design rules to promote overtaking. He also replaced the Jochen Rindt Kurve, which was one of the most exciting corners of the old Osterreichring.


I'm talking of a driving perspective yes, the last section in Fuji sucks due to these overly tight corners following in close succession. There's technical sections and overdoing it, and with Tilke he has a tendency to overdo it.

That was more of a make do chicane. In latter years they replaced that with the Ostcurve which was great fun. All 3 chicanes in that era were nice both for the drivers as for the spectators.

Difference of opinion I guess. I don't consider any of the areas you circled as Mickey Mouse.

Especially the ones at COTA. The first one you circled is just some Esses, and they're not exactly tediously slow speed. The second section by turn 12 is quite slow in speed....but did you watch the USPG last year? That's where most of the action happened. Cars were side by side battling back and forth through that whole section. The stadium in Mexico is Mickey Mouse, not this section of COTA.

As far as AMP...now you're just trolling . There's nothing Mickey Mouse about those sections at all.

Especially, especially, the second one you circled. If that's Mickey Mouse, then the Corkscrew at Leguna Seca, and Skyline & the Dipper at Bathurst are Mickey Mouse as well

 

[mister dog]

Those kind of loops you normally tend to see during sewing classes:

I guess the inspiration came from mother Tilke

 

[twitcher]

Those kind of loops you normally tend to see during sewing classes:

I guess the inspiration came from mother Tilke

Funny. You also see loops like that at racetracks like Brands Hatch (Druids), Silverstone (Luffield), Oulton Park (Shell Oils), Nurburging GP (Dunlop Curve), Sonoma (Turn 6), Limerock (Big Bend), etc etc.

 

[Furinkazen]

Those kind of loops you normally tend to see during sewing classes:

I guess the inspiration came from mother Tilke

God you would hate Croft then.

 

[Samus]

Malaysia was his first scratch circuit and I personally can't find any huge faults with it. Good track. Austin 6-9 aren't Mickey Mouse but the 13-16 section is definitely a candidate. Bahrain isn't too bad but that Endurance layout in 2010 was awful. Shanghai isn't Mickey Mouse but it is filled with Tilkisms, the double apex as mentioned before, the long ass straight and hairpin, the typical circa 90-120 degree short apex final turn.

Istanbul was good but again the last two turns are the usual Tilke. The street circuits you can't say too much about given the obvious limitations. Yas Marina is once again full of classic Tilke, probably has every ingredient. Korea, same yet again. It has the long straights into hairpins, the mickey mouse bits out the back and more circa 90 constant radius stuff.

India was half decent thanks to the elevation but still it had yet another long straight into tight corner twice, his absolute favourite.

Sochi is just a constant radius 90 borefest for the most part and I think that's about it for the ones I have enough knowledge on.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Bahrain isn't too bad but that Endurance layout in 2010 was awful.

Can't really blame him for it, since even he distanced himself from it, saying that it was never intended to be used for Formula One.

Yas Marina is once again full of classic Tilke, probably has every ingredient.

I recall reading somewhere that Tilke - or at least one of his engineers - went on record as saying that the basic circuit layout had been finalised when they came to the project; all Tilke had to do was tweak it to fit FIA Grade 1 regulations. It's not unheard of for others to modify his work; his original proposal for Singapore was radically different to the final product before an American consultancy firm took over - Tilke's layout ran clockwise, did not include the chicanes along the waterfront (as that was the main straight), did not require the construction of any new roads, and did a loop around Sun City instead of running along Raffles Boulevard.

He also explained (quite separately) that the circuit was built for the client, and that since the client wanted to open the circuit up for track days, he included the long back straights so that they could get their cars up to top speed.