The Architect of Modern F1 Turns 71

Hermann Tilke, the chief architect of modern Formula 1 circuits, is celebrating his birthday, having turned 71. Since the late 1990s, he has designed the majority of the championship’s new tracks and has worked on Moscow Raceway, the Sochi Autodrom, and several other circuits in Russia.

His designs are often criticised, as drivers tend to favour classic “old-school” circuits. Tilke himself explains this by pointing to the strict requirements and constraints of the modern era: every new track must be unique, yet an ideal circuit does not exist. According to him, fully realising all his ideas would require a circuit hundreds of kilometres long something that remains purely hypothetical.