Formula 1 comes to Austin this weekend, and one story that’s been simmering a bit beneath the surface is whether this could be the series’s last trip to Texas for a while. The contract expires after this year, it hasn’t been renewed, and while the race is on F1’s 2022 calendar, F1’s gotten some practice these last two years in moving the schedule around.
For whatever it’s worth, Bobby Epstein, the chairman at Circuit of the Americas (the facility that hosts these races) sounded positive in this interview with Autoweek earlier this month:
It’s hard to believe, but the upcoming Formula 1 race is the last in the track’s 10-year contract with F1. How are negotiations going? “I have a non-disclosure so I can’t really say too much, but I’m pretty optimistic that we’re going to get there.”
Epstein has reason to be optimistic—word is within F1 that renewing COTA is a no-brainer. Like most F1 events in the U.S. over the years, COTA had massive crowds for the first few years, then the crowds began to decline. COTA has held on long enough for the race to become an American institution, and in the recent past, the audience has come back.
It’s an informative piece beyond that slice, if you’re interested in COTA in general. No word on whether my recreational karting performance there back in March, in which I finished something like fourth out of seven drivers, was good enough to catch any eyes, but still a good piece. Just didn’t ask the hard questions, I guess. Disappointing, but understandable. Hard questions are hard for a reason, you know?
