Last year’s United States Formula 1 Grand Prix was plagued with enough track limits violations to rival a CVS receipt. Things were so bad that drivers were constantly getting on their radios to snitch on their competitors, hoping they’d be penalized. A round of changes to the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas aims to fix that for this year’s race—but will it?
The first major change to address the track limits situation is the narrowing down of runoff outside of the driving surface. These buffers on Turns 6, 13, 14, and 15 have been reduced by 1.5 meters, or nearly five feet. That’s a considerable margin, which should make it clearer to stewards whether the car is violating the limits. In addition, the newly narrowed verges are no longer tarmac—they’re now covered in synthetic turf. This will force drivers to keep it within the lines or pay the price of losing traction. In other words, there will be no advantage to overrunning the white lines—quite the opposite.
The infamous Turn 11 where cars would constantly run wide after the apex has endured an even more serious modification, with the exit now featuring a gravel trap. According to Motorsport.com, this “fake gravel” was first used at Zandvoort in the Netherlands as a deterrent for drivers. This material essentially works the same as regular gravel, but it does not fling as easily, per se, meaning that the pebbles stay in place rather than being shot out onto the track. COTA is also adding more cameras in “strategic places” to monitor track limits.
These updates come in addition to perhaps the biggest change for 2024: a full track resurface. As we’ve seen in previous races this year—most recently at Monza—a new track surface can completely alter a car’s baseline setup due to changing grip conditions and other variables. This may further shuffle things in an already mildly unpredictable season, with some drivers handling the new surface better than others.
While some of these may sound like minor modifications to a sprawling circuit, it’s worth highlighting that due to COTA’s hosting of various major series, agreeing on certain F1-specific changes was not easy. As race promoter Bobby Epstein explained, what works for F1 may not work for other series—specifically MotoGP—so engineers had to keep this in mind while altering the track’s features.
“There are some areas where it’s hard because, if you run MotoGP and F1 on the same track, one wants gravel in an area where another one wouldn’t,” Epstein told Motorsport. “You can’t have both, and you can’t cut into the track and put in gravel, then flip it back and hope it stays watertight when you have clay underneath it. So there’s some back and forth challenges to it.”
“[The resurfacing] was mainly to get rid of the bumps. Some of that track was 12 years old, so it was time. I know Max [Verstappen] gave it a pretty poor review last year. So I hope we hear something positive,” he added.
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