Formula 1 returns to the United States for the first time since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. This weekend there Ferrari it will in fact be competing at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin for the 17th round of the 2021 season. This is the ninth time that it will compete on the Texan circuit, inaugurated in 2012. Carlos Sainz And Charles Leclerc, who turned 24 last Saturday, will take to the track for the first time on Friday at 11.30 local time (18.30 CET) for the first free practice session.
The track is one of the drivers’ favorites for its layout that combines long straights and complex but extremely fun sequences to ride behind the wheel of a Formula 1 single-seater. Several curves are inspired by those of famous circuits, including the first sector of Suzuka. , or the curves of the Hockenheim Arena. From the starting straight the riders go up a slope with a gradient of more than 11% to get to turn 1, a hairpin with the rope point at the top of a hill for which it is not easy to take the right references. From here you descend towards a quick series of them, to arrive at turn 10, blind, and then at the hairpin of 11. You then enter the longest straight of the track – one kilometer – before the strong braking of turn 12 which leads into the final sector, the slowest of the track. The last two bends to the left lead back to the starting straight. The roadway is deliberately very wide in some points to allow the pilots different trajectories even if already in 2019, especially off the beaten track, the surface was very bumpy. There are two DRS areas: on the main straight and between turns 11 and 12.
The rearmost position on the starting grid from which one of the 70 Grand Prix races that Formula 1 has disputed in the United States (under different denominations) has been won is 22nd. It was John Watson who succeeded in the feat in the 1983 Long Beach Grand Prix, when the Northern Irishman took his fifth and last success in Formula 1. In Austin, however, no driver who did not start from the front row has ever managed to win: four times the winner started from pole position and the same number from second place. Among these also Kimi Raikkonen in 2018, when he captured what up to this point remains his last success in Formula 1.
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