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The Circuit of The Americas has quickly become a Formula 1 fan favourite since it first held the United States Grand Prix in 2012.
The layout often produces thrilling racing with no shortage of overtaking opportunities and high tyre degradation that often leads to strategical dilemmas.
COTA has hosted two of Lewis Hamilton’s seven coronations and often provides an important twist in title battles.
Ahead of F1’s ninth race at the circuit today, after a year away, we decided to rank the eight previous grands prix to be held in Austin from worst to best.
8. 2016 US Grand Prix
By no means a terrible race, but the 2016 US Grand Prix fell a little flat when Max Verstappen’s stricken Red Bull ruined what would have been an entertaining battle for second place between Nico Rosberg and Daniel Ricciardo.
This was at a point in the season where Rosberg could afford to finish second in every race until the end of the year and still take the title. But Ricciardo made things interesting with a lap one overtake to move into second on a rare day where Mercedes’ advantage at the front was minimal.
This battle was curtailed when Verstappen broke down as Rosberg was able to make his pitstop under the virtual safety car and he came out comfortable ahead of Ricciardo who had stopped under green flag conditions.
It did set up an entertaining late-race battle as Carlos Sainz’s Toro Rosso attempted to hold onto the fifth place that he’d leapt into under the VSC, but the action at the front quickly fizzled out and Hamilton romped to a comfortable win.
7. 2017 US Grand Prix
By the time the 2017 F1 field arrived in Austin, Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari’s championship challenge had dramatically fallen apart, but when Vettel was able to blast past Hamilton on the run to Turn 1 on the opening lap, it looked like we’d be in for an entertaining race.
Unfortunately, the fight at the front ended on lap six when Hamilton breezed back past Vettel and cleared off into the distance.
Ricciardo may have made that fight at the front more interesting but he ground to a halt just when he was threatening.
The most exciting moment of the day came in the cooldown room after the race when Verstappen, who had charged from the back of the grid to third place, had to be swapped with Kimi Raikkonen after the Dutchman received a penalty for illegally overtaking the Ferrari driver on the final lap of the race with a move that was always going to land him with a penalty. It’s not a great sign when the scenes after the race are more memorable than those during it.
Elsewhere, there’s the latest instalment in the Sergio Perez/Esteban Ocon Force India team order row (remember that feud?), Sainz’s Renault debut and Brendon Hartley’s first F1 race where he was ominously mediocre.
6. 2013 US Grand Prix
You know how sometimes a sporting event’s outcome is obvious and long-decided, but it still has to go the full distance because that’s just how things are? There’s an excellent term for that in American sports – “garbage time”.
The 2013 United States Grand Prix was a full race of “garbage time”. Vettel had won the title a couple races prior, and now simply had to worry about extending his unbeaten streak – a driver at his peak in clearly the field’s best car, sharing it with an about-to-retire Mark Webber.
Webber was just a tenth off Vettel in qualifying, but allowed a couple of cars through at the start, and that was basically that. Vettel’s final margin of victory was six seconds, but that very much flatters a race in which he was barely ever part of the TV coverage, so inevitable his win.
Further down the order, the entertainment was brief and often dubious in terms of quality from a sporting standpoint. A bizarre Adrian Sutil/Pastor Maldonado shunt on the straight (well done!) triggered a safety car, with Sutil seemingly to blame, while Sauber’s Esteban Gutierrez was responsible for a fair amount of action by stopping early early and then slowly falling down the order, his race eventually undone in a clumsy-looking shunt with Jean-Eric Vergne.
Ultimately though, the biggest intrigue was whether Lotus driver Romain Grosjean would be able to hold off Webber. And he did, without letting Webber get all that close – impressive for the Frenchman, but hardly ideal for entertainment value.
5. 2014 US Grand Prix
It’s hardly the most novel observation, but re-visiting a race from 2014 is quite the experience when you’d forgotten just how remarkably hideous the ‘14 crop, save for the leading Mercs, really was. Seeing the cucumber-nosed Toro Rosso in the same shot as the twin-tusk Lotus really does feel like you’re being pranked.
Once that shock has worn off, what you’re left with is a pretty good COTA race, really only let down by the fact that Hamilton’s early hounding of Rosberg would pay off in a nifty contested overtake as early as the lap 24 – making the rest of the race out front something of a procession.
The battle for third provided more longevity though, with Ricciardo mounting a vintage recovery from a bad start to undercut the two Williams cars and fight off Felipe Massa. And further down, there was a genuinely enchanting battle between soon-to-be-team-mates Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button. A late Vettel pitstop and charge, after he’d started from the back due to engine penalties, also livened things up.
It’s not a must-see classic, and not one of the go-to races of 2014, but perfectly serviceable given the lopsided competitive balance of the first hybrid-era campaign.
4. 2019 US Grand Prix
Probably the best intra-Mercedes fight since Bottas replaced Nico Rosberg for the 2017 season.
Bottas had to pass Hamilton not once but twice as he elected for what would turn out to be the superior two-stop strategy.
It was a beautifully-executed race and the sort that would have kept Bottas his job had he repeated it more often.
But this article isn’t about Bottas, it’s about how good the Austin F1 races were, and this one was pretty decent with a lead battle that wouldn’t be decided until the final laps of the race.
It had the extra edge that Hamilton could wrap up the title with two races to go, but considering he only needed a couple of points, it was hardly edge-of-your-seat stuff as to whether he could clinch it.
Still, an entertaining lead battle and plenty of good midfield fights – including a last-lap clash between Daniil Kvyat and pitlane starter Perez over 10th place.
3. 2018 US Grand Prix
Barring an act of God, this will remain Raikkonen’s final F1 victory and it was a well-deserved one at that.
For the first time in almost two years, Raikkonen gained a place on the first lap as he battled his way past Hamilton on the run to Turn 1 to take the lead of the race.
Further back, Vettel spun his Ferrari on the side of Ricciardo’s Red Bull and snuffed out any glimmer of a title fightback. But in doing so, he set up a rather entertaining comeback drive for himself where he did just enough to delay Hamilton’s title victory to Mexico.
Raikkonen and Hamilton diverged on strategy and despite shouts of another Ferrari pitwall error, it proved to be the right call, thanks to the perfect execution from Raikkonen, but that wasn’t clear until the very last laps of the race.
There was also the added element of Verstappen, who for the second consecutive year had charged from the back of the grid, and had a fight with Hamilton that looks even sweeter (and cleaner than what we’ve come to expect in 2021) with hindsight.
The Texas Two-step ➡️ F1 style 🍿 #USGP 🇺🇸pic.twitter.com/6y3lRR9kY1
— Red Bull Racing Honda (@redbullracing) October 18, 2021
2. 2012 US Grand Prix
If an F1 race in the 2010-2013 era settles into a Red Bull 1-2 at the start, you have every right to be worried. But while the first-ever grand prix at COTA did just that, it then got really good really fast.
The sheer amount of action sustained in the early laps of the event, particularly at the uphill Turn 1, feels completely disorienting in the modern era of horrific dirty air. And it bears mentioning that all that action was relatively clean or at least clean enough to keep cars intact, with the two retirements coming from a suspension failure for Vergne and an alternator failure from Webber.
By the time Webber’s car failed, he’d already lost out to Hamilton, setting up a slow burn victory battle between Hamilton and Vettel, with potentially huge championship ramifications given it was the penultimate race of the season and the German looked like what had a genuine chance to wrap things up early.
Instead, as traffic came into play, Vettel ultimately lost out to Hamilton with 14 laps left to run, and Alonso maximised his day with a third-place finish that helped keep things interesting for Interlagos.
If there’s one complaint, it’s how easy it looked for Hamilton to DRS past Vettel on the back straight, prompting Vettel to rant: “Unbelievable how silly Formula 1 is these days, with these stupid overtakes.”
He so obviously had a point, but it feels a quaint complaint given we’re now in an era of F1 in which non-DRS assisted overtakes are rarer than the dodo.
1. 2015 US Grand Prix
After torrential rain prevented qualifying from happening on Saturday, it was only right that COTA would make amends by staging an all-time classic the following day. The actual race portion of the 2015 United States Grand Prix was as good as it had any right to be.
Two Red Bulls becoming welcome interlopers in a potentially title-deciding Mercedes fight out front in damp conditions? Check. Title rivals Hamilton and Rosberg nearly coming to blows at Turn 1 and then running the whole race in close proximity to each other? Check. A plethora of great fights – whether it be the Toro Rossos versus the Ferraris, or Vettel taking on his former team, or a late safety car causing a free-for-all in the lower reaches of the top 10? Check, check, check.
Capping off the 2015 title fight in Austin 😮🧢💨
Hamilton 🆚 Rosberg#USGP 🇺🇸 #F1 pic.twitter.com/yvxjdFYLwi
— Formula 1 (@F1) October 20, 2021
Ultimately, that late safety car equalised and transformed the race out front too, just after a virtual safety car period looked to have handed a decisive advantage to Rosberg, who’d used it to pit.
The German would’ve been great value for the win despite that slice of fortune – as he recovered from being pretty blatantly run off the road at Turn 1 to reel in and pass Hamilton in conditions we have since come to associate with the now seven-time world champion. But when the safety car made a late appearance, Rosberg buckled – his late-race error handing not only the race win to Hamilton but the championship too with three races to spare.
