1: The first person to complete a lap at the Circuit of the Americas was the American racing legend Mario Andretti. In a fitting tribute, the 2022 Formula 1 champion was honoured: the left-hand bend before the start and finish line was named after him.<\/p>\n
2: The \u2018Circuit of the Americas\u2019 (COTA) is the first US race track to have been built specifically for Formula 1 \u2013 construction costs amounted to 300 million dollars.<\/p>\n
3: Previously, the US World Championship round had been a real nomad, held at nine different venues: Indianapolis Motor Speedway (1950\u20131960 and 2000\u20132007), Sebring (1959), Riverside (1960), Watkins Glen (1961\u20131980), Long Beach (1976\u20131983), Las Vegas (1981\u20131982), Detroit (1982\u20131988), Dallas (1984) and Phoenix (1989\u20131991).<\/p>\n
4: \u2018Texas\u2019 is derived from \u2018tejas\u2019. The first Spanish settlers found the indigenous Caddo Indians so friendly that they called them \u2018Tejas\u2019 (friends).<\/p>\n
5: A landmark of COTA \u2013 the 77-metre-high observation tower (with a glass floor) designed by the architect Mir\u00f3 Rivera. Take a closer look: viewed from the side, the tower resembles a snake rearing up.<\/p>\n
6: The colours of Texas have the following meanings: white stands for purity, blue for loyalty, and red for courage. The \u2018Lone Star\u2019 on the left-hand side of the flag symbolises Texas\u2019s independence from Mexico.<\/p>\n
7: The first settlers arrived in Austin in 1835, but the city was not officially founded until 1839 \u2013 and was not even called Austin to begin with, but Waterloo!<\/p>\n
8: The city\u2019s name, Austin, is derived from the first Secretary of State, Stephen F. Austin (1793\u20131836).<\/p>\n
9: Certain sections of the COTA circuit are reminiscent of traditional European tracks. The uphill run to the first corner at the former \u00d6sterreichring, and the rapid changes of direction in corners 4 to 6 at the Maggots\u2013Becketts complex at Silverstone. The third sector is a technical section, much like the Motodrom at Hockenheim, and there\u2019s a section reminiscent of the Senna S at Interlagos.<\/p>\n
10: Eleven of the thirteen Formula 1 winners at COTA since 2012 started from the front row of the grid.<\/p>\n
11: And these drivers have triumphed at COTA.<\/p>\n
2012: Lewis Hamilton (GB), Mercedes<\/p>\n
2013: Sebastian Vettel (D), Red Bull Racing<\/p>\n
2014: Lewis Hamilton (GB), Mercedes<\/p>\n
2015: Lewis Hamilton (GB), Mercedes<\/p>\n
2016: Lewis Hamilton (GB), Mercedes<\/p>\n
2017: Lewis Hamilton (GB), Mercedes<\/p>\n
2018: Kimi R\u00e4ikk\u00f6nen (FIN), Ferrari<\/p>\n
2019: Valtteri Bottas (FIN), Mercedes<\/p>\n
2020: no race<\/p>\n
2021: Max Verstappen (NL), Red Bull Racing<\/p>\n
2022: Max Verstappen (NL), Red Bull Racing<\/p>\n
2023: Max Verstappen (NL), Red Bull Racing<\/p>\n
2024: Charles Leclerc (MC), Ferrari<\/p>\n
2025: Max Verstappen (NL), Red Bull Racing<\/p>\n
12: If Texas were a country, it would be the ninth-largest economy in the world.<\/p>\n
13: The only COTA debutant this year: Arvid Lindblad (Racing Bulls).<\/p>\n
14: Austin is not only home to the US Grand Prix but also to one of the world\u2019s largest bat colonies. Every evening from March to September, 1.5 million Mexican free-tailed bats swarm out from their roost beneath the Congress Avenue Bridge. It\u2019s a spectacle watched by countless tourists every year.<\/p>\n
15: The Drivers\u2019 World Championship has been decided at the Circuit of the Americas on two occasions \u2013 in 2015 and 2019, both times in favour of Lewis Hamilton. This weekend, Kimi Antonelli could be crowned champion.<\/p>\n
16: Austin (motto: \u2018Keep Austin Weird\u2019) is a young city, with 60,000 students and 250 live music venues. Every year, Austin hosts several music festivals of all kinds. The city itself, not without a touch of modesty, calls itself the \u2018live music capital of the world\u2019. The South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in the spring and Austin City Limits (a week before the Grand Prix) both attract as many fans as the GP weekend \u2013 500,000 visitors each!<\/p>\n
17: An interesting fact: ten per cent of Austin\u2019s residents are of German descent. Very popular is the \u2018Scholz Garten\u2019 beer garden, situated north of the stunningly beautiful State Capitol.<\/p>\n
18: There are still 17 moonlight towers from the 1890s standing throughout Austin, each 50 metres high. The 31 original towers were not erected following a series of murders (that\u2019s an old wives\u2019 tale), but simply to light up the city. The towers are listed buildings. Austin is the only city in the world where such towers can still be found.<\/p>\n
19: Why was the circuit actually named the \u2018Circuit of the Americas\u2019? It was intended to emphasise the circuit\u2019s location in Texas, as a crossroads between north and south and between east and west.<\/p>\n
20: The agreement to host the US Formula 1 Grand Prix at COTA runs until the end of 2034 inclusive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"1: The first person to complete a lap at the Circuit of the Americas was the American racing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473603,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133],"class_list":["post-473602","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\/473602","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=473602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}