Circuit of The Americas is home to a sprint weekend and a huge crowd as Formula 1 returns to Austin. It is the drivers’ favorite circuit and consists of 20 corners and an undulating challenge with quick changes of direction, technical sections and some big stops.
While Oliver Bearman has yet to race at the home of the United States Grand Prix, it was a little too good an opportunity to pass up the chance for this week’s track guide to actually feature a hot COTA lap with a current Haas team driver.
AT A GLANCE
Race distance: 56 laps/191.4 miles
Pole time 2024: 1.32.330 seconds (Lando Norris, McLaren-Mercedes)
Winner 2024: Charles Leclerc, Ferrari
Pirelli tire allocation: The United States Grand Prix will be the second race of the season for which Pirelli will include three non-consecutive connections, the last being Spa-Francorchamps, and the available tires will once again be the C1 as Hard, the C3 as Medium and the C4 as Soft. In Belgium, bad weather meant it wasn’t possible to find out how this choice might have affected the strategy and so the event at COTA could be the first real test of this choice, seeing the use of a harder Hard than last year on the US circuit, while the Medium and Soft are the same.
The larger performance difference between the hardest compound and the middle one should theoretically give rise to two scenarios. If drivers prefer the C1, the slowest but also the most consistent of the three, they could run a one-stop race in combination with the C3. On the other hand, using the latter together with the C4, with its improved resistance to degradation, would yield faster lap times, but would almost certainly require two stops.
Another similarity to the Belgian round is that the Austin weekend will also run on a sprint format, meaning teams will have just one hour to try out the different options over long and short runs, adding to the uncertainty of how the Grand Prix might proceed.
MSC CRUISES UNITED STATES GRAND PRIX WEEKEND SCHEDULE (all times ET):
Friday October 17
1:25 PM – 2:30 PM – Practice, ESPN2
5:25 PM – 6:30 PM – Sprint Qualifying, ESPN2
Saturday October 18
12:55 PM – 2:00 PM – Sprint, ESPNews
4:55 PM – 6:00 PM – GP Qualifying, ESPNews
Sunday October 19
3:00 PM – 5:00 PM – United States Grand Prix (56 laps or 120 minutes), ABC
#COTA #rags #Oliver #Bearman #RACER