Race starts at 2 pm in America/3 am on Monday in Malaysia
After circulating around Europe since April, the Formula 1 World Championship crosses the Atlantic to the USA for Round 17. The event is at the Circuit of the Americas (COTA) in Austin, Texas, which has to cancel its race last year due to the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s a venue that the teams have always been happy to visit since it first joined the championship in 2012.
The 5.513-km long circuit with 20 turns offers drivers a variety of challenges. The first sector features a wide, blind first corner that allows for multiple lines, followed by a sequence of rapid changes in direction similar to Suzuka’s Esses. A car with good balance will have an advantage.
The second sector has a long high-speed straight followed by a heavy-braking overtaking point at Turn 12. The cars approach this turn after having traveled the long straight and must lose almost 240 km/h in order to set the braking point up right. They go from 333 km/h to 94 km/h in just 2.52 seconds and 125 metres.
During that time, the drivers are subject to 5.8g in deceleration or almost 6 times their body weight. So a driver weighing 70 kgs will feel like he weighs almost 420 kgs, which requires a high level of fitness to be able to cope with that and control the car properly over 50 times during the race.
Compared to the motorcycles, the single-seaters complete the race 30 seconds sooner because they travel a good part of the corners at a faster speed and sometimes don’t need to brake. Of the 10 braking sections on COTA, Brembo technicians have classified three as demanding on the brakes, one is medium difficulty and five are light.
Commenting on the conditions at COTA, Pirelli’s Head of F1 and Car Racing, Mario Isola, said that despite the circuit having been resurfaced for around 40% of its total length, there’s not a huge difference in terms of abrasion compared to the last F1 race in 2019. Several bumps are also still present despite some surface ‘milling’ – a process designed to smooth out the asphalt.
“The biggest difference has instead been the weather, with both track and ambient temperatures considerably warmer than the cool conditions experienced a couple of years ago. As expected in today’s warm temperatures, there was a bit of overheating on the soft C4 compound rear tyre, which is quite stressed given the severe traction demands of this circuit in the final sector especially,” he said.
“A two-stop strategy is the more likely, with the high speeds and abrasive surfaces here taking a lot out of the tyres. At the same time, the relatively low pit stop time loss and number of overtaking opportunities mitigate the advantages of a one-stopper. There are a number of different two-stoppers that are quite closely matched, depending on the race circumstances, so this looks set to be an intense strategic battle,” added Isola.
The championship for drivers still remains close at the very top, with Max Verstappen just 6 points ahead of Lewis Hamilton after the 16th round in Istanbul. For the constructors championship, Valtteri Bottas’ win in the Turkish GP plus Hamilton’s 5th placing gives the Mercedes-AMG team a 36-point lead ahead of Red Bull Racing. The Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS team and Lewis Hamilton have been dominant at COTA but Verstappen’s pole position for today’s race may be the beginning of a change.
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