Making The Apex

When it comes to race track design, drawing a beautiful curve is just the start

- Cameron Kirby

In another life Erno Rubik probably would have made a good race track designer. In 1974, the Hungarian sculptor and architect invented one of the most popular puzzle toys in the world – the Rubik’s Cube. The key to its popularity was in making something that looked straightforward fiendishly difficult to master. More than 40 years after it first began being mass-produced, the multi-coloured toy continues to baffle and challenge puzzle enthusiasts around the world.

A great race track is much like a Rubik’s Cube. It should engage and intrigue on a number of levels, delivering a lasting test because, for the most part, a motorsport circuit is designed and built just once. The well of information informing race car set-up is deep, and drivers have never been as information-rich as they are today. And yet there are race tracks that even decades after they were first built, continue to challenge and confound racers and engineers alike. Clive Bowen, the Founder and Director of Apex Circuit Design and a veteran of the industry calls these features “mistake generators”.