Carsten Tilke grabs a piece of Las Vegas from the shelf. It’s one part of a model of the forthcoming track in the world’s gambling capital. “You see the Bellagio?” he asks, drawing GP Racing’s attention to the miniature of one of the world’s most famous hotels, along with its 8.5-acre man-made lake and the fountains which dance to music every 15 minutes during the evening. “Here it is. And the fountains.”
The 3D printer, housed in one of the rooms of the Tilke Engineers & Architects building in Aachen, is yet to produce the rest of the circuit mock-up. It’s a busy piece of equipment: models which emanated from it adorn much of the three-storey office of the company, located in one of the alleyways next to Krefelder Strasse on the outskirts of town, near New Tivoli Stadium, where the local football club Alemannia plays its matches.
Next to the chunk of Nevada on the shelf are details of various other Tilke projects – mostly the recent ones.
“This is Jeddah. See, the last corner,” says Tilke Jr, grabbing another square object from the shelf.
“The media island is here,” smiles Tilke Sr, indicating the state-of-the-art edifice, a small part of the substantial infrastructure project involved in staging the Saudi Arabian GP.
GETTING ON ECCLESTONE’S RADAR
Hermann Tilke’s company now employs 150 people, mostly designers and engineers. He founded it back in 1983, having just finished university. Six months as an office-based engineer left Hermann feeling he wasn’t getting enough time for his hobbies – Tilke raced in various GT championships – and he quit, instead setting up
