Video: why Las Vegas F1 track keeps changing – Carsten Tilke explains how street circuits are built. Carsten Tilke explains how street circuits are built.

The Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix will return to the championship in 2023, and it’s track design has been through a number of changes – but how is a Formula 1 track design created?

Matt Amys spoke with Carsten Tilke from Tilke Engineers & Architects, founded by his father Hermann Tilke, who explains the full process on how street circuits for the FIA and Formula 1 are constructed!

“If you go to Las Vegas, you need to use the strip,” said Tilke. “That was our goal, and it was not so easy to find a track working with this part of the strip included. [There were] 10 different versions, maybe, and at one point there was only one that was really feasible.”

To find that one feasible track, they had to work the casinos to make sure that tourists could still get out and about when the track was being used, and that they could still receive the deliveries necessary for a big hotel to run. Moreover, there are important safety considerations for a Formula 1 circuit, as well the need for marshals, medical staff, and others to access the track, not to mention the need for the racing to be good.

“Of course, in a city, you are restricted by the buildings, but we also try then to get the most out of it,” said Tilke. “Sometimes you can influence [the racing] a bit. If the roads are wide you can shift them a little bit, [adjust] where to position the track, how is the radius of the corner, try to use corner combinations, where you have attack, overtake, counter-attack, so you have, like, cool racing action.”

— see video above —