The Racing Line at Circuit of the Americas

Circuit of the Americas is a gorgeous track, conceived in 2010 and completed just a couple years later. It is the first track in the United States to be purpose-built for Formula 1 racing, with the innagural F1 race having taken place in November of 2012. The track hosts several other bigtime events, including the Texas Motorcycle Grand Prix, MotoGP, American Le Mans, and the Rolex Sports Car Series. In part designed by Hermann Tilke, the mastermind behind many of the current F1 circuits, COTA features two big straights and a variety of corners, as well as an overall length that dwarfs most US road courses. In the flowing curves of the front section and the technical turns in the back, achieving the proper racing line requires careful study and acquired flow.

Beginning with Turn 1, the GT3 RS and Motorcycle differ from the Miata and F1 in that they should exit narrow and get back to the far left edge in preparation for 2. Most drivers fail to do this, however. Turn 3, the first of the esses, should be entered from around mid-track. All vehicles take a fairly shallow double apex at Turn 6, then come out of Turn 7 slightly right of center, touching the right curbing of 8 very early in the turn. Perhaps beacuse a straight follows, most onboard footage shows drivers setting up wide for Turn 8, but this is not the way to go.

Moving on to the back section, Turns 12-19, there are some subtleties between the different lines that are evident from the map. One place that many drivers get consistently wrong, however, is entering Turn 15. Most vehicles should stay left after exiting 14 and actually hit both apexes preceding 15. Then they swing out to around mid-track before tightening it back in toward the final apex at 15. Arriving at Turn 16, the Miata and F1 cars stay wide of the first apex. After Turns 19 and 20, take a breather down front straight that wraps up this 3.43 mile beauty.