Last weekend, Circuit of The Americas, COTA, in Austin Texas hosted the US Grand Prix, over 420,000 people attended this event. As Formula One racing has become more popular across the US, this event has become larger, this year’s audience being the largest group yet. Formula One has been massively popular internationally for quite some time, but has recently increased in popularity in the US. 

One of the reasons for the increasing popularity of F1 is the Netflix show Drive to Survive, which is entering its fourth season this year. The show highlights drivers, managers, and team owners throughout the season.

The event lasted 3 days, Friday was practice where the drivers familiarized themselves with the track and the crews prepared the cars, Saturday was qualifying where the drivers qualified for placement in the race the following day. This all leads up to Sunday’s race day. The race consists of 56 laps on the track containing 20 turns.

While two weeks prior to COTA, Redbull driver Max Verstappen won the Formula One Championship at the Japanese Grand Prix, this means that all the other drivers are competing for second. However, at COTA the World Constructors (Racing Team Championship) was still up for grabs, Rudbull ultimately won this at the conclusion of this race. 

The race’s results concluded with Redbull’s Max Verstappen 1st, 2nd was Lewis Hamilton for Mercedes, and 3rd was Farrari’s Charles Leclerc.

COTA is located on the southeast side of Austin, the weekend of the race was windy, which affected the cars. Along with the Formula One race, there was also races for historic F1 vehicles, meet the drivers presentations, carnival rides, and concerts both Green Day and Ed Sheeran performed throughout the weekend. There were also smaller local artists that performed on smaller stages across the venue, such as Der KleinSteins, a New Braunfels German tribute band. 

Overall the event was a great boom for Austin, across the city hotels were booked, and restaurant reservations were hard to come by. People from across the world attended the event, and it appeared that a great time was had by all.