The Lotus F1 Team was on hand for the official opening of the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas. Mario Andretti, 1978 world champion, completed the official first lap. We’ve got a couple of videos for you after the break.
First, we have Lotus test driver, Jerome D’Ambrosio, at the wheel with his commentary of the lap as well. Next is a local news clip filed from the official opening which includes a few words from Andretti and others.
The United States Grand Prix follows the races in India and Abu Dhabi and will be held on 18 November.
3 replies on “Circuit of the Americas previewed”
t1 is beautiful!
Pits on the left hand side unusual for F1?
I agree it looks like a great track, which is kind of important since it’s going to host almost the largest number of major categories out of any track in the world with F1, MotoGP, World Endurance Championship, V8 Supercars, ALMS and Grand-Am (and presumably the 2014 combined series) all on the cards for 2014. and rumours that NASCAR will sign on the dotted line for 2014 once the V8 and Grand-Am series events have been held successfully.
It is a little unusual in that 72.5% of the current F1 season is run clockwise, but it does conform to the convention that the pits are on the inside of the track on an even greater proportion of the tracks. Anti-clockwise tracks are a little harder on the drivers because their neck muscles are not used to doing most of the turning to the left, this was especially notorious at Istanbul with the multi-apex turn 8. This shouldn’t be so bad for COTA because the most G-intensive corners will be two of the right-handers.
Melbourne, Sepang, Shanghai, Bahrain, Barcelona, Valencia, Silverstone, Hockenheim/Nürburgring, Hungaroring, Spa-Francorchamps, Monza, Buddh – clockwise, with the pits on the right (inside)
Monaco – clockwise, pit lane to the right (inside) but garages to the left of pit lane
Montr̩al Рclockwise, pits on the left (outside)
Marina Bay, Austin, Interlagos – anti-clockwise, pits on the left (inside)
Suzuka – figure 8, pits on the right of the clockwise section (inside)
Korea, Yas Marina – anti-clockwise, pits on the right (outside)
15 current circuits have the garages on the right, 5 have them on the left.
17 current circuits have the pits on the inside, 3 on the outside (about 2.8 if you deduct the Yas Marina pit exti road)
14.5 current circuits are clockwise, 5.5 anti-clockwise.
Future circuits at New Jersey and Sochi will both be clockwise with pits on the right.