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Q&A with Clive Bowen (Pt.1)
Sam Collins caught up with Clive Bowen at the beginning of the week for a Q&A.
Do you have a favourite race circuit?
Suzuka.
Why?
For the sheer challenge of it. A combination of compound radii, corner sequences and the topography make for a circuit that is great for racing. It also looks spectacular on television and the drivers love it. In particular they talk about coming out of the first corner and into the Esses.
You mention two corners there that people like, is it true that some of the corners you have designed are inspired by those on other circuits?
Well the old adage that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery applies here. It was evident when we were talking to the likes of Damon Hill that drivers were able to give advice by referring to corners or circuits that they had driven. For example the Beausset double right hander at the end of the Mistral Straight at Paul Ricard formed the basis of turns six and seven at Dubai. In a similar fashion we started with a bit of a copy of the Suzuka Esses for turns three, four and five and turn fourteen was a copy of one of the hairpins at Nogaro. These corners are not straight copies but instead provided the inspiration; we refined them by changing the topography through the corner.
The Dubai Autodrome was your first major design to be completed – almost everyone who drives there talks about what a great place it is to go, how did you achieve that?
We talked to a lot of people, teams and drivers. I had a pretty good feel myself from my own amateur racing in karts and Formula Ford. As an engineer I was able to convert the notion of driver ‘feel’ to something empirical. At the time I was part of the MG Sport and Racing British Touring Car Championship team, with Anthony Reid and Warren Hughes as drivers and I spent a lot of time talking to them about the nuance of late apexes, crests, dips and things like that. We discussed things that can impact on the way a car handles and it is nuance which makes a circuit interesting.
But modern circuits are often criticised for having a lack of character. Can you design that?
Yes. It’s the fact that what the eye sees and what the body feels need to be different. If you have a circuit where ‘what you see is what you get’ then that’s not going to give you character in my opinion. If you are able to do things like increase or decrease grip levels, using subtle changes in grade or camber then you can challenge the way that the car handles which in turn challenges the driver and then that in turn challenges the engineers.
