I admit it: when it comes to Formula 1 these days, I am very tired and extremely jaded.  It's very hard to get excited race after race when the ending is pretty much preordained. "Oh look, it's a Mercedes on pole.  Oh look, a Mercedes is winning.  Oh look, a Mercedes won."  For the past six years, its been this way, just replace "Mercedes" with "Red Bull" for 2010-2013.  The politics of F1, often just as interesting (or more!) as the racing now just bores me.  Oh, Red Bull is threatening to pull out if they don't get Ferrari or Mercedes engines in 2016?  Whatever.  People wanting Honda to fire the guy in charge of the F1 engine program because it isn't winning races?  Yeah, good luck with that.  Bernie threatening yet another classic track (this time Monza) while Azerbaijan gets a race in 2016?  It's been done.   But there is one way to get me interested again... let's head to Austin TX for a big ol' race, American style!  Let's take a look at the track map for the 2015 United States Grand Prix:

Still the same place it's been 2012, but that's good because this is one helluva circuit.  Much the same way that English doesn't so much borrow words from other languages as much as it pursues other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary, the Circuit of the Americas did the same to the great racetracks of the world.  Turns 3-4-5?  Look to Silverstone's Maggots-Becketts-Chapel complex.  6-7-8?  If you squint a little, they look similar to the S-Curves in Japan.  The big horseshoe (16-1 is surely a hat tip to Turkey's Quad-8.  But COTA's party piece is undoubtedly the runup to Turn 1, a roughly 140ft climb from the start/finish line to the top of "Phil Hill".

Doesn't look like so much from that angle, does it?  Don't worry, it gets better.  I've never heard a racer say anything bad about the track, nor any of the teams, and not even the tire supplier or fans grumble too much about it.  That pretty much makes it unique among new tracks.

Also unique is the coverage we're going to get from the Legendary Announce Team this weekend!  Here, take a look:
FRIDAY
Practice 1: 10a - 1130a  Live on NBCSN
Practice 2: 2p - 330p  Live on NBCSN
SATURDAY
Practice 3 & Quals: 1130a - 3p  Live on NBCSN
SUNDAY
2015 United States Grand Prix: 130p - 5p  Live on NBC (includes pre- and post-race coverage)
We just don't get that type of coverage for any other race on the calendar, and it's all because it's the home race of NBC.  Hopefully the race will be good!

We'll see you then, then!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:51 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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