The 2026 Formula 1 season heads to Texas this weekend for the United States Grand Prix, as Austin\u2019s Circuit of The Americas prepares to welcome the drivers for Round 18 of the campaign. But how much do you know about the famous American venue? F1.com has your all-in-one guide\u2026<\/p>\n
When was Austin\u2019s first Grand Prix?<\/p>\n
The Circuit of The Americas made its Formula 1 debut in 2012, becoming the first purpose-built F1 venue in the United States and marking the championship\u2019s return to the country after a five-year absence.<\/p>\n
It was designed by renowned circuit architect Hermann Tilke and the track takes inspiration from some of F1\u2019s most famous corners, including Silverstone\u2019s Maggots and Becketts sequence and the sweeping turns in the stadium section of Hockenheim in Germany.<\/p>\n
The inaugural race was won by Lewis Hamilton<\/a>, who overtook Sebastian Vettel<\/a> to claim his final victory for McLaren<\/a> before his switch to Mercedes<\/a>. The Briton has since become the most successful F1 driver in COTA\u2019s history, with five victories to his name.<\/p>\n What\u2019s the circuit like to drive?<\/p>\n The 5.513km circuit combines high-speed changes of direction with tight, technical corners. Meanwhile, the steep uphill approach to Turn 1 and blind apex offers one of the most dramatic starts to a lap anywhere on the calendar.<\/p>\n With 20 corners and several overtaking opportunities, drivers need to balance speed and precision throughout the lap, particularly through the opening sector and the more technical final sector.<\/p>\n Jolyon Palmer, former Renault F1 driver, explained: \u201cThe Circuit of The Americas is a great track that takes inspiration from parts of other legendary corners on the calendar.<\/p>\n \u201cThe uphill Turn 1 is difficult at the race start as there are loads of different lines that can be taken, then you sweep through the first sector, which is a bit like Silverstone, where you\u2019re trying to find your rhythm.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter that, it\u2019s the long back straight and you\u2019ve got to get your braking point right at the end of it.<\/p>\n \u201cProbably the hardest section on the circuit is Turn 13 through to Turn 15, which feels like an odd complex of corners behind the wheel. Turn 13 is conventional, but finding your line through to 15 is not easy, while that Turn 14 area puts a lot of load on the tyres.<\/p>\n \u201cYou go through the quadruple right-hander after that, followed by Turn 19, which is a really nice corner \u2013 though track limits are an issue.<\/p>\n \u201cFinally, you stop for Turn 20, then it\u2019s a short burst to the line, but drivers need to be careful not to light things up as it\u2019s easy to break traction.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 2026 Formula 1 season heads to Texas this weekend for the United States Grand Prix, as Austin\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473255,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133],"class_list":["post-473254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473254\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}