Formula 1 at COTA - The racer's race

The Circuit of The Americas predates Formula 1’s American boom, and it shows, with less focus on VIPs and more on the “real” fans. With an event attendance of 430,000 in 2024, it’s one of the best-attended races on the calendar, and you can make a strong case that it’s the true standout among the dozen U.S. venues that F1 has visited over the past 70 years. For the fans, there are myriad spectacular viewing points, while for the drivers, it’s a challenging and varied circuit with the fast sweeps from Turn 3 to Turn 9 being the highlight. While it’s rarely cited by drivers as their outright favorite, it’s right up there.

This is a track that has everything, including something Miami and Las Vegas lack: elevation change – just over 130ft of it. That might not sound much, but it’s well used, and the 11 percent climb to the slow Turn 1, taken in first gear by Lando Norris on his 2024 pole lap, is the track’s signature corner. The undulations, combined with the wide range of corner speeds, make it difficult to set up for in the current generation of cars due to the risk of bottoming out – something that led to the exclusion of Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari and Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes after the 2023 race.

The sweeps that follow start fast – flat into Turn 3, then around 275km/h (170mph) into Turn 4 down to around 160km/h (100mph) in Turn 8. It’s one of the best corner combinations on the calendar, one where mistakes can multiply and lead to time bleeding away. It’s almost a hybrid of the famous “Snake” section early in the lap at Suzuka and the Maggotts/Becketts complex at Silverstone. It makes for a true spectacle, trackside and on TV.

No one talks much about the hairpin that follows, a conventional first-gear left-hander, but one that can be time-sapping, especially in the current cars in which low-speed front-end downforce is at a premium. That sends the cars back onto the long drag down to Turn 12, which leads into the switchback section through to Turn 15, with a tricky approach that requires drivers to combine braking and turning. The deceptively quick Turn 16-18 triple right-hander taken at full throttle follows before the sixth-gear Turn 19 left-hander that drops away and takes the cars back to the slow left-hander onto the start/finish straight.

It’s the variety of corners that makes COTA difficult. The fast corners put huge amounts of energy into the tires, and despite last year’s race being a one-stopper, even on qualifying laps some management is required to ensure a good balance of grip around the lap. But the track is also ever-shifting, built on soft soil with water erosion causing endless movement. That’s led to the need for resurfacing work, particularly after criticism from MotoGP riders, but means the track is always subtly changing.

So Circuit of The Americas is a throwback: it’s a modern facility, but one that feels more organic and rough around the edges than Miami and Las Vegas. It also provides good racing, passing and sheer enjoyment for the drivers.

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