Austin Formula One Grand Prix

Bram Hengeveld · Sep 30, 2012

Very nice article by Alejandro about CotA: http://www.racedepartment.com/2012/09/f1-2012-the-game-circuit-of-the-americas/

Hampus Andersson · Oct 5, 2012

Wow this could be real bad..

Will Buxton ‏@willbuxton
Oh dear. All appears not to be well at COTA. Garages haven't been built to spec and are far too small. Teams meeting Charlie to discuss.

Will Buxton ‏@willbuxton
Health and safety won't allow them to work in the garages. Bernie won't allow them to work under tarpaulin. One royal screw up brewing.

Jordi Casademunt · Oct 5, 2012

How did this happen? Because someone is either a magnificent incompetent, or the garages were designed by a monkey.

Anyway, 1 month and a half left! So get some chinese workers there asap, rebuild the garages, and you might get them done in time.

William Levesque · Oct 5, 2012

Hampus Andersson said:
Wow this could be real bad..

Who cares about garages, get some tents

Hampus Andersson · Oct 5, 2012

Cleared up now, seems Buxton was drunk or something.

http://www.statesman.com/blogs/cont...s/2012/10/05/cota_garages_not_too_small.html/

Xosé Estrada · Oct 5, 2012

He probably thought they had to be longer and wider than FIA spec, and not just have more total surface.

Ryan Vickery · Oct 6, 2012

I was quite looking forward to this race, but having driven the track on F1 2012 and Simraceway... I'l be honest I think the track is terrible, lots of adverse camber corners with plenty of complete blind spots and a load of breaks in the flow.

Obviously will reserve judgement until I watch the actual real life race, but from testing the track feels like a silverstone/Istanbul blend gone wrong, it will certaintly be good at forcing mistakes from drivers, but I will be surprised if any of them leave there praising the track design.

But I could be wrong!

Rhys Gardiner · Oct 7, 2012

I'd have to agree. Giving the track a go on SRW, it seems that the first sector is pretty good, but the middle and final sectors don't have any flow to them at all... But I'll wait for the race to see how the SRW version compares to real life.

Hampus Andersson · Oct 8, 2012

Some more on the pit box issue.

Another week, another US grand prix rumour. This time it’s the turn of the Circuit of Americas, which was subject to criticism when stories began to circulate of problems with the pit facilities. While it was originally rumoured
that the garages had not been built to spec and were too small for purpose, it later transpired that the teams’ problem was with allocation, not size. Rather than building 24 garages in six logical blocks of four, they had been constructed in oddly sized groupings that means an equal division of space will not be possible. As a result, the teams will have to work with less space than is desirable, but earlier fears of health and safety violations in the garage design have proved to be unfounded.