Hermann Tilke

Hermann Hugo Tilke (born 31 December 1954) is a German engineer, racing driver and circuit designer, who has designed numerous Formula One motor racing circuits. His son is architect Carsten Tilke.

During the 1980s, Tilke competed in touring car racing, mainly on the old Nürburgring Nordschleife circuit. He also competed in VLN endurance racing and the 24 Hours Nürburgring. He and Dirk Adorf won some VLN races with a V8Star Series in 2003 and 2004.

Tilke also raced in the 2002 and 2003 Bathurst 24 Hour races at the famous Mount Panorama Circuit in Australia. He placed 14th outright and 3rd in Class 9 driving a Honda S2000 for the races promotor Ross Palmer alongside Peter Hansen and Australian female racer Melinda Price. Tilke returned to The Mountain in 2003 with British GT team Cirtek Motorsport in a Porsche 996 GT3-RS alongside Melinda Price and British drivers Tim Harvey and Jonathan Rowland, but their race ended with engine failure just before dawn on the Sunday morning (the race started on Saturday at 2 PM local time) after completing 325 laps of the 6.213 km (3.861 mi) road circuit (the race winning Holden Monaro 427C covered 527 laps).

After completing his civil engineering degree with specialization in transport and traffic management at Fachhochschule Aachen, Tilke established Tilke Engineering in 1984, combining skills in architecture, civil engineering and electronic engineering to provide complete solutions for motor racing and waste disposal projects.

Tilke is one of four designers recognised by the FIA but has, with the exception of the Silverstone redesign in 2010, been the only one to be commissioned to design Formula One tracks. One of his first minor tasks was to design and build a short access road at the Nürburgring, earned due to contacts made by his racing efforts there. His first major job was the transformation of the fast Österreichring to the much shorter A1-Ring in Austria, in the 1990s.

Tilke was involved in the radical overhauls of European circuits, such as the Hockenheimring, Circuit de Catalunya and Nürburgring, as well as Fuji Speedway in Japan.

Tilke secured the contracts to design many high-profile new world circuits from scratch, mainly in Asia but also in eastern Europe. He designed Sepang International Circuit, Bahrain International Circuit, Shanghai International Circuit, Istanbul Park Racing Circuit, Valencia Street Circuit, Marina Bay Street Circuit, Yas Marina Circuit, Korea International Circuit and the Buddh International Circuit. Tilke also designed the new Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, where F1 made its return to the United States in 2012. Tilke's latest designs include Sochi Autodrom which hosted its first race in 2014 with the debut of Russia in F1, Kuwait Motor Town (Kuwait) which opened officially in 2019, and the Hanoi Street Circuit which was set for an inaugural race in April 2020 but got cancelled due to COVID-19.

Tilke has designed every track with several other engineers from Tilke Engineering, as well as F1's former commercial rights holder Bernie Ecclestone. After viewing the track site and "once factors such as topography, wind direction, infrastructure and soil quality are known" the design work can begin. Tilke focuses on "conceiving dramatic architecture that reflects the host country, like Sepang's lotus-leaf grandstands in Malaysia", while also aiming for spectator comfort and clear viewing. He "build[s] corners that promise a fast and interesting race but avoid pulling the field apart".