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Tilke backs more street circuits

Renowned Formula One track designer Hermann Tilke believes it is necessary to build circuits that are closer to the racing fans

The German reckons the sport should make an effort to attract fans by racing more often on street circuits, rather than on state-of-the-art venues located far from the cities.

Currently, the Formula One calendar only includes two street circuits, in Monaco and in Melbourne.

"I think, there is a trend to get the tracks to the fans and not the other way around, and closer to the fans naturally suggests racing in the cities," Tilke said in an interview with autosport.com.

"And for obvious reasons you can hardly build permanent racetracks in the middle of a town, so you then come logically to street circuits.

"The second reason, and Monte Carlo is the best example, is that a street circuit creates a very special atmosphere."

Tilke admits, however, that street circuits cause bigger headaches from a logistic point of view, making the races less viable.

"Then again, street circuits also create a great deal of trouble, even more so when a race has not grown over the years such as the Monaco Grand Prix has," Tilke added.

"Everyone in Monte Carlo is aware, than once a year they cannot move as they want, they might be handicapped in parking their cars, in getting to their apartment, opening their store and so on.

"Reasons like that make it very difficult to adapt a town to a new race. And that might be ultimately the reason why we had so few street races in the younger history of Grand Prix racing.

"If, however, you have an area that is new anyway ­ as it is the case both in Abu-Dhabi and in South Korea ­ then you can build everything with all that in your mind.

"Straight away you can tell future owners of the flats or the houses that once a year there might be trouble, but that racing has also some advantages."

Read the whole interview with Herman Tilke in this week's Journal of autosport.com.

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