When Formula 1 returns from its autumn break, it will do so in the United States for the 12th running of the United States Grand Prix at Circuit of The Americas.
The Austin, Texas track has taken some heat in recent years due to its bumpy asphalt, which was incredibly hard on cars and drivers in 2023. Thankfully, COTA has revamped the front stretch in hopes of making for a smoother ride.
COTA’s latest resurfacing project
The Circuit of The Americas in Austin, Texas has taken some heat in the last few years due a track surface so bumpy that Red Bull’s Max Verstappen slammed it as being “better suited to a rally car” than a Formula 1 machine.
Multiple drivers were in agreement with Verstappen after the 2023 event, which was made all the more punishing due to the fact that the Grand Prix was paired with a sprint race. At the end of the weekend, Lewis Hamilton was ultimately disqualified from the Grand Prix due to excessive wear on his skid plate.
It was a particular surprise to drivers, as COTA had recently been partially resurfaced in 2021. At that time, Turns 2-10 and Turns 12-16 were repaved to flatten the worst of the bumps, but it still made for a brutal 2023.
Circuit of the Americas embarked on an additional resurfacing project in April of 2024, prior to MotoGP’s Grand Prix of The Americas. The project was completed in late August in anticipation of the World Endurance Championship racing at the track.
Dig deeper into COTA:
???? Six ways the WEC and COTA can transform Lone Star Le Mans into a can’t-miss event
More than 18,000 tons of asphalt were used to resurface the track — primarily the front stretch, which had become particularly problematic in recent years.
Track president Bobby Epstein noted that while the track may lose some of its “character,” but that it will ultimately produce smoother racing and quicker lap times ahead of the 2024 United States Grand Prix.
Part of the issue with the Texas circuit is simply its location. The track is built on something called “high plasticity clay.” In effect, that means that the ground overall is particularly susceptible to growing, shrinking, and undulating in response to seasonal temperature shifts and precipitation.
Here in Texas, this is a pretty common problem; highways or roads built on a similar kind of high-plasticity clay are also subject to heaving.
Resurfacing is only a temporary solution to what is effectively an ongoing concern with the location; the only way to permanently remedy the problem would involve tearing up the track and rebuilding it below the clay zone particularly susceptible to seasonal shrinking or swelling. However, that would require more time and money to remedy than resurfacing, and with COTA’s robust year-round racing schedule, shutting down the track for several months is out of the question.
It’s worth noting that COTA’s developers took ample measures to prevent this kind of surface undulation by building water barriers and filling the track area with gravel prior to paving. These measures, however, aren’t foolproof.
The new resurfacing can be expected to solve many bumpy issues for a few years, though COTA will likely have to continually undertake similar resurfacing projects in order to maintain the track surface.
Read next: Why Sergio Perez’s new Red Bull contract is a big deal for North America