Monaco. Indianapolis. Le Mans. Spa. Daytona.
There are certain racetracks that are so intertwined with the history of racing that they become as legendary as the icons who navigate their corners.
“When you have these old racetracks with a lot of history, then there’s a lot of things that happened in each corner. It makes it unique, it makes it interesting for people,” Hermann Tilke — managing director of Tilke Engineers & Architects, who have designed from scratch or overseen renovations of 17 circuits on the Formula One, NASCAR and MotoGP calendars in 2024 — told ESPN. “Tradition makes heroes; it also makes heroes out of the tracks.”
Because of those traditions, because they’ve been home to so many history-defining moments in motorsport, courses such as Interlagos in Brazil or Assen in the Netherlands have become as celebrated as Fenway Park or Madison Square Garden.
What about the circuits without that lore, though? It’s not often that you hear a quarterback talk excitedly about getting to play at the San Francisco 49ers’ Levi’s Stadium, which opened in 2014, yet racers across disciplines routinely gush about the satisfaction they get from conquering Tilke’s Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, which opened in 2012.
“I don’t think there’s one specific answer to what makes a track so good,” said Pato O’Ward, the four-time IndyCar race winner for Arrow McLaren and reserve driver for McLaren’s F1 program in 2024. “I think it’s really all about: Does the track suit the race cars that are going on it? Does it suit the motorcycles that are going on it?
“Barber Motorsports Park [Round 3 of this season’s IndyCar championship] truly is a motorcycle track, it’s not a track for cars, but it is very enjoyable for cars and it’s produced some pretty good racing for cars. … If you take a Formula One car around there, I don’t think it’d be very fun just because [an F1] car is more intertwined with bigger tracks. You can’t put a Formula One car on an IndyCar track and expect it to be very good because it’s not going to be.”
This is part of what has made Tilke Engineers & Architects the most ubiquitous name in circuit design today. Of those 17 tracks on the F1, NASCAR and MotoGP calendars this season it has touched, only three appear on two or more of those series’ schedules: the Red Bull Ring in Austria, Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in Spain and Circuit of the Americas.
Although countless venue owners would love to host as many world championships as possible, most have to be realistic about who will be using their facilities. That consideration is at the forefront of Tilke’s design process.
“What is the intention of the track,” asked Carsten Tilke, Hermann’s son and fellow managing director of Tilke Engineers & Architects. “Should I just entertain the amateur Ferrari driver or Porsche driver, or should I make it for Formula One, which has completely different driving characteristics than a GT car, for example?
“And sometimes [track owners] want it all. Of course, it’s most difficult to make it nice for Formula One, for MotoGP, for GT and club racing. Then you need to make some compromises in some ways.”
Beyond their expertise in civil engineering, the Tilkes have the on-track pedigree to understand what racers want from a circuit. Hermann Tilke raced touring cars for decades, and Carsten Tilke is actively involved in endurance racing, taking fifth in last year’s 12 Hours of Mugello and 17th in the 24 Hours of Barcelona; he won the 2009 Dubai 24 Hour.
Brad Binder, a two-time MotoGP race winner for Red Bull KTM, spoke excitedly about the Circuit of the Americas’ first sector, a six-corner series of esses. It begins with the track’s signature Turn 1, a sharp left-hander preceded by a braking zone that rises 133 feet from the start/finish line.
On two wheels, navigating the flowing sector requires physically climbing all over the bike to initiate direction changes, shifting body weight from one set of footpegs and handlebars to the other. For riders whose physiques resemble the svelte stature of competitive cyclists, it is an intimidating show of strength.
“It’s basically the most changes of direction … over the lap … on the whole calendar,” Binder said. “That first sector is insane.”
Even comfortably belted into a cockpit, surrounded by four wheels, it’s a physical experience for drivers, who are subjected to demanding G-forces. As O’Ward tells it, though, there are few better feelings in a race car.
“The change of direction is a really good feeling,” he said. “When the car doesn’t change direction very well, it’s horrible, it’s just like, ‘This sucks,’ but when it does and when it’s doing what you want it to do, the change of direction is probably one of the most aggressive feelings that you get to feel.
“You’re going from [being pressed against] one side [of the cockpit], pulling 3 or 4, even 5, 6 G’s for the Formula One cars, and then as soon as you go to the other side [of the cockpit] it’s 5 G’s in the opposite direction, and it’s awesome. It is awesome. It just feels so cool. That’s probably going to be one of the best feelings inside of a race car.”
Creating a circuit is never as easy as asking yourself, “What would be really fun to do in a car or on a motorcycle,” and then sketching it out and overlaying that drawing on a map of a plot of land, though.
“It’s never an empty piece of paper which we start with when we draw the circuit,” Carsten Tilke said.
There are limiting factors to every design, whether there are government-protected lands that must be observed or a soil type that complicates asphalt settlement or a lack (or overabundance) of elevation change.
“There are plots of land which have a lot of elevation naturally, like Spa, but then others are maybe in a flat area or a swampy area where there’s no elevation,” Carsten Tilke said. “That’s where our expertise and our creativity comes into mind, to create out of flat surfaces an interesting layout to play a little bit with ups and downs, even if it’s a little bit and with bankings, with corner combinations and so on.”
Or, as F1’s street circuit boom continues apace — eight of this year’s 24 races will take place fully or partially on city streets — there are the limitations imposed by the concrete jungles of a downtown skyline to contend with.
Considering all the hurdles the Tilkes, and everyone else in their industry, face, and without the benefit of decades of history to fall back on, it’s a triumph when they create universally adored racetracks such as the Circuit of the Americas. And as racers continue to gush over their challenges, maybe they’ll soon have enough history of their own to ensconce them in motorsport lore.
