One of the great curiosities about the Formula 1 World Championship has for a long time been the sport’s failure to make a dent in the American sporting conscience. Perhaps this should not be a surprise, as the United States is an enormous and fascinating country in itself which lives in its own world and on its own terms (some say in its own bubble), where typical sports are a form of football played with the hands, an accelerated frenzy of tactics and heavy impacts not dissimilar to rugby, basketball (which has extended farther and wider than the States and baseball, whose world series is US-dominated.
In terms of motorsport, ovals dominate, from the roots of grasstrack and racing on dirt through to NASCAR stock car racing. A parallel exists among many of these sports – stop-start events, with a blow of the whistle or a wave of the yellow breaking the action for a while, during which time strategies are re-assessed: these are high-energy bursts of sporting action with the onus on entertainment and “the show” too.
Formula 1 meanwhile, lived its own bubble for so long that despite protestations that the US was an essential market commercially-speaking and more importantly, was vital to its interests of claiming to be a true world championship, it simply never generated a following. This oddity came in spite of the fact that the country has produced two world champions, Phil Hill (1961) and Mario Andretti (1978) and prior to the latest incarnation of the race) ran Formula 1 races at nine circuits across eight different states – Sebring, Riverside, Watkins Glen, Long Beach, Las Vegas, Detroit, Dallas, Phoenix and Indianapolis. In fact, from 1959 in Sebring until the last race at Indianapolis in 2007, there was at least one Formula 1 Grand Prix in 41 of the 56 seasons in the USA. Many times, there were two Grands Prix (Long Beach, a popular street track, was always run as US Grand Prix West, for example) and in 1982 there were even three races on US soil (Detroit, Las Vegas and Long Beach).
If you look at the Formula 1 winners lists you will see some unfamiliar names arise. Strangely perhaps, points scored in the Indy 500 from 1950 until 1960 counted towards the Formula 1 world championship despite the race not being a Grand Prix. This didn’t, however, give Formula 1 a foothold in America. For that it needed to do its own thing and some of the circuits were good (e.g. Watkins Glen) and some bad – there was a combination of excellent races and ill-thought-out messes.
1980 to 1982 in Las Vegas springs to mind. Las Vegas should bring a certain razzmatazz to the sport, but the decision to hold the Grand Prix in an uninspiring car park round the back of the Caesar’s Palace hotel and casino doomed it to failure, despite being a championship decider. Dallas held a one-off Grand Prix on a street track in 1984 but like Spa a year later, the track surface broke apart in the heat before the race. Unlike Spa, the race never returned. Between 1989 and 1991 the race took place in Phoenix. It did not garner much attention. In 1990 with attendance figures low (reported at 10,000 to 15,000), a local ostrich race pulled in more spectators - a bit more than three times as much. This was not a positive sign.
And then there was Indianapolis. This was after the biggest break in the US Grand Prix history and despite taking place eight times, it never seemed to make much sense. Going all the way to the hallowed temple of speed which is host venue of the Indy 500, only to see quick cars scramble round an awkward infield course and drive one fast corner of the oval backwards didn’t capture the imagination or gel as a concept. In 2006 after the Michelin runners (the majority of the field) did not have tyres considered safe enough to last the race, an infamous boycott occurred, leaving just four Bridgestone-shod Jordans and Minardis trailing in the wake of the winning Ferrari pair. This was a fine refutation of the concept that there is no such thing as bad publicity and was just the wrong country in which to happen. That said, Formula 1 hardly generated any publicity anyway and so there was always the hope that someday, Formula 1 would return to the United States with a track and event of which to be proud.
In 2012, that day arrived and it came in the Texan state capital, Austin. The enthusiastic and forward-thinking city welcomed Formula 1 with fervour and open arms. I was pleased to attend the inaugural event there that year and thoroughly enjoyed the race and exciting layout. It immediately leapt up to be well up the list as one of my favourite tracks. It is one of four anticlockwise circuits, all near the end of the season, along with Marina Bay in Singapore and the forthcoming Interlagos and Abu Dhabi. From a clean sheet of paper, the track developers created one of the most undulating tracks on the calendar, with a big variation in gradient. This year, Austin forms an American double-header, with the return to Mexico City up next week.
The track is fantastic. The run up to Turn 1 is steeply uphill with a blind apex into the left-hand Turn 1. Turns 3 to 6 are a relentless thrill, like Maggotts and Becketts at Silverstone, but perhaps even more dramatic with the elevation change. The drivers chuck the cars in and keep flicking in opposing directions. Turns 16 to 18 is a multi-apex delight, rather like the one in Istanbul Park. Far from being some kind of rip-off, you put these corners into this new track and you get a circuit with its own character and excitement.
Last time out in Sochi, Mercedes sealed the constructors’ championship, but only late in the evening after Kimi Raikkonen’s penalty for booting out Bottas from the race. With Rosberg’s DNF after leading, it was not a glorious result for the Brackley-based team, who will be hoping to celebrate their victory this weekend in more emphatic style, preferably for Lewis Hamilton coupled with what now seems like his inevitable third drivers’ championship victory. Lewis only needs to finish 9 points in front of Sebastian Vettel and 2 in front of Nico Rosberg to take the spoils.
Californian Alexander Rossi also becomes the first home driver since Scott Speed in 2007 to start a United States Grand Prix. He is in the slowest car of the year, so it will be interesting to see what the level of home support is.
Will anyone from Ten-Tenths be in attendance in Austin this weekend? Let us know.
Constructors’ championship standings:
http://www.formula1.com/content/fom-...standings.html
Drivers’ championship standings:
http://www.formula1.com/content/fom-...standings.html
Circuit length: 5.513km
Number of laps: 56
Race distance: 308.405km
Dry weather tyre compounds: Soft and Medium
DRS Detection Zone 1: between Turns 10 and 11
DRS Activation Zone 1: between Turns 11 and 12
DRS Detection Zone 2: between Turns 18 and 19
DRS Activation Zone 2: On start-finish straight
Speed trap: Just before Turn 12
Lap Record: 1:39.347 (2012 – Sebastian Vettel- Red Bull Racing-Renault)
First World Championship Grand Prix: 2012
