AUSTIN, Texas — Fernando Alonso remembers the quiet times for Formula One in Austin.
Back when the two-time F1 champion could jog the city streets without being noticed, move through a hotel lobby with ease, and drive to the Circuit of the Americas for the U.S. Grand Prix without planning for traffic well ahead of time.
No more. If anything demonstrates the explosive growth of F1 in the U.S., it’s the projections of more than 400,000 fans expected to pack the city and the circuit this weekend for the 10th anniversary of the Texas race that put the series’ footprint back on American soil.
“In the last four years or three years, there’s a lot of fans. It has changed everything. It changed the traffic, it changed the hotel,” Alonso said this week. “I ran this morning in the city and everyone recognized us now.”
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The U.S. Grand Prix has been the foothold for F1 in the U.S. since the first surprise announcement that a $300 million racetrack was being cut through the rocky soil a dozen miles from the state Capitol. The series’ explosive growth in America has led to an additional race in Miami that started this season, and another coming in Las Vegas next year.
Welcome to America’s Circuit 🇺🇸 #USGP https://t.co/MtuXtUNJm3
— Circuit of The Americas (@COTA) October 20, 2022
Sunday will be the final race of the original 10-year agreement in Austin because the COVID pandemic canceled the race in 2020. But F1 isn’t going anywhere. A five-year extension was already announced last year.
“I spent most of my adult life putting the pieces together for F1 to come to my hometown,” said Tavo Hellmund, the founder of the Texas race and its initial promoter.
“My vision was for F1 to be the success it was the inaugural year in 2012 and last year in 2021. My wife used to say to me, ‘Gosh, when Americans get to see F1 the way you do, they’ll be hooked.’ ”
The Texas race has had its share of ups and downs.
Lewis Hamilton won the first race in 2012, overtaking eventual season champion Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull. Vettel returned in 2013 to spin donuts after a victory in a dominant year that saw him tie Michael Schumacher’s single-season wins record of 13.
That was also the last of Vettel’s four championship seasons and he’s set to retire this year. Red Bull’s current champion, Max Verstappen, can tie the single-season victory record if he wins Sunday. Even with this season’s title already in hand, Verstappen plans to push for the victory and the record.
“I still want to win,” Verstappen said.
Hamilton clinched two of his seven championships here.
The first came with a rainy victory in 2015 amid a bitter rivalry with Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg. Hamilton’s postrace cap toss to a dejected Rosberg in the cool-down room – and Rosberg throwing it back past Hamilton’s face – is memorable. Hamilton clinched his sixth championship here in 2019.
Attendance dipped for several years. But it began to rebound when Circuit of the Americas President Bobby Epstein started tying major entertainment acts into the race weekend. Taylor Swift, Justin Timberlake and Billy Joel are among the pop stars who have performed Saturday night concerts on the midfield in recent years.
“We learned from the fans what they wanted. We started out thinking this was just about motorsports,” Epstein said. “What we should have been doing is saying, what do the fans want? How do we make this about entertainment? That’s why we see such huge crowds here.
“Of course, we were worried about it a lot between years four and seven. And then the pandemic hits just when we were getting on our feet and getting successful and profitable,” Epstein said.
The year away and the gripping championship fight between Verstappen and Hamilton in 2021 brought a massive crowd.
Fans love the place and so do the drivers.
“This is one of the better circuits we have,” said Hamilton, who along with Vettel, Red Bull’s Sergio Perez and McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo have raced in Austin every year since it opened.
“We get this crowd that just keeps growing year on year. They just do it differently here. Us Europeans, we’re good at sports …. but the sport is growing as a whole in how we put on a show.”
A horse, @DanielRicciardo and Austin TX.
It’s all you need. 🐴#USGP 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/5pvNipjuSl
— McLaren (@McLarenF1) October 20, 2022
Ricciardo, an Australian, embraces the Texas atmosphere like no one else. Every year, he mimics a Texas drawl and finds a way to connect with the locals.
He rode into the paddock Thursday on a horse while wearing a cowboy hat and jacket made to look like an American flag ahead of what may be his final race in Austin. Ricciardo won’t return with McLaren next season and currently doesn’t have a seat for 2023.
“The U.S. Grand Prix is one of my absolute favorite races of the year,” Ricciardo said. “The extra energy I get from the atmosphere is immeasurable and I love everything about it.”
Max Verstappen won the last two Abu Dhabi GPs, but a sixth-place finish last week in Brazil has him posted with plus odds for the first time in several weeks at PointsBet Sportsbook. Last week, he was listed with odds of -195 ahead of qualification; this week, he is +115, more than 300 points higher.
Verstappen has eight wins in the last 10 races this season but finished outside the top five in the other two. Abu Dhabi has been kind to the 2022 champion, however, with five of his six starts there landing in the top five. Verstappen is also favored to win the pole on Saturday with a line of -106.
An easy way to determine the payout is to move the decimal point two positions to the left, so a line of +115 means a bettor will make $1.15 on each dollar wagered.
For bettors more comfortable with fractional odds, a bet of +200 is the same as 2/1.
Lewis Hamilton (+270) has been shut out of Victory Lane this year. If he fails to win in Abu Dhabi, it will be the first time that has happened in his 16-year career. Hamilton won back-to-back on this track in 2018 and 2019, which are part of an eight-race streak of podium finishes there. Hamilton is posted at -225 to finish third or better.
Last week Hamilton’s teammate George Russell cashed in on 13/1 odds with his first Formula One win. The sportsbook traders will not be caught flatfooted again and his line plummeted to +400 for the Abu Dhabi GP. In three starts in this race, Russell has a best result of 15th in 2020 in a Williams Racing entry.
Sergio Perez and Charles Leclerc round out the top five with lines of +850. These two drivers are locked in a tight battle for second in the points and enter the weekend tied. In the last 12 races, both Perez and Leclerc have almost identical records with two results outside the top five each. In terms of average finishes, Leclerc holds a slight advantage of 4.9 to Perez’s 5.1. Neither performed particularly well last year with Leclerc landing 10th and Perez 15th.
No other driver is listed below 25/1. Carlos Sainz is listed at +2500 for the outright win and +260 to stand on the podium. He finished third in the 2021 Abu Dhabi GP.
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