WORD ON THE STREETS
We all love a city circuit but as Clive Bowen of Apex Circuit Design tells Damien Smith, regular roads – especially in the US – can cause plenty of problems
The best street circuits require three defined sequences to offer a proper challenge for teams and drivers. So says Clive Bowen, left, founder of Apex Circuit Design that counts the Miami Grand Prix track among its many projects.
“You need something that will generate very high speed, ideally including corners as well as straights, like in Jeddah,” he explains. “But you also need the yin to the yang: a lowspeed sequence, ideally one that also has gradient change so that you need compliance from a vehicle that’s not reliant on downforce. Then you need something in the middle, all to create ‘intentional mistake generators’. If you optimise your car so you gain time in the high-speed sequences you’ll lose time in the low-speed parts because you’ll have a car that’s stiff and not compliant. Likewise, vice versa.”