United States Grand Prix
The United States Grand Prix is a motor racing event that has been held on and off since 1908, when it was known as the American Grand Prize. The Grand Prix later became part of the Formula One World Championship. As of 2023, the Grand Prix has been held 52 times at ten different locations. Since 2012, it has been held every year at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, except in 2020 when it was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
This article is about the Formula One race currently held in Austin. For other events named "United States Grand Prix", see United States Grand Prix (disambiguation). For the proposed Formula One race in New Jersey, see Grand Prix of America.Race information
History[edit]
Beginnings and the Vanderbilt Cup[edit]
Inspired by the Gordon Bennett Cup and Circuit des Ardennes races he had competed in, William Kissam Vanderbilt II founded a series of road races in the United States to showcase American road racing to the world. The Vanderbilt Cup soon became an institution on New York's Long Island, attracting American and European competitors alike. However, the race was plagued by crowd control problems, which led to spectator deaths and injuries, and the cancellation of the 1907 event. Upon its return for 1908, the American Automobile Association did not adopt the new Grand Prix regulations agreed upon by the Association Internationale des Automobiles Clubs Reconnus (AIACR).[1][2] This led the rival Automobile Club of America, an enthusiasts group with strong ties to Europe, to sponsor the American Grand Prize, using the Grand Prix rules.[3] The Savannah Automobile Club of Savannah, Georgia, which had staged two days of successful stock car races on March 18 and 19, 1908, won the rights to stage the event.[4]
Other Grands Prix in the United States[edit]
The United States Grand Prix is the longest-running Formula One World Championship event held in the United States. Previously, however, there were four other separate F1 events there.
From 1976 until 1983, the Long Beach circuit hosted a newly created United States Grand Prix West, which ran in the same seasons as the United States Grand Prix (East). The United States was thus the first nation since Italy in 1957 to hold two Formula One Grands Prix in the same season. During the years 1976–1980 when both Grands Prix ran, the United States Grand Prix was also referred to as the United States Grand Prix East. The Caesars Palace Grand Prix ran as a Formula One World Championship race in Las Vegas in 1981 and 1982 (after which it continued two further years as an event in the CART series). 1982 saw the inaugural Detroit Grand Prix in the center of Detroit, Michigan, which ran until 1988. The 1982 Formula One season thus featured three Grands Prix in the United States—the first time in World Championship history that a country hosted more than two Grands Prix. Finally, a one-off Dallas Grand Prix in Fair Park, Texas, was held in 1984; it was plagued by problems with the track surface, exacerbated by extremely hot 104 °F (40 °C) July weather.[76] After these short-lived events, the historical United States Grand Prix returned in 1989 at Phoenix and until 2022 remained the only Grand Prix on the F1 calendar to be held in the United States, despite changing locations a few times since.
A potential new Grand Prix in the New York City area was announced for the 1983 season, to be held either at the Meadowlands Sports Complex, Meadow Lake in Flushing Meadows, or Mitchel Field in Hempstead, Long Island (on the same site as the 1936 and 1937 Vanderbilt Cups).[77][78] However, the race was first postponed and then cancelled,[79] as CART started their own race at the Meadowlands, and titled it the "United States Grand Prix".[80]
The most serious effort to date to bring a Grand Prix to New York City was the Grand Prix of America at the Port Imperial Street Circuit, which was included on the proposed 2013 calendar but was then cancelled. In 2022, the first Miami Grand Prix was held at the Miami International Autodrome, a track specifically designed for F1, located around the Hard Rock Stadium in the Miami suburb of Miami Gardens, Florida. The first Las Vegas Grand Prix took place on November 18, 2023.[81]
Phoenix (1991)
