The addition of the Miami Grand Prix to the calendar this year made it 11 venues in the United States that have hosted a world championship race after Sebring, Riverside, Watkins Glen, Long Beach, Las Vegas, Detroit, Dallas, Phoenix, Indianapolis and the host of this weekend’s US Grand Prix – the Circuit of the Americas in Austin.
Not every track has been a hit, as we detail here, but there have been plenty of memorable races down the years.
From Jack Brabham famously running out of fuel and pushing his expired car over the line to clinch the 1959 title at Sebring, to Innes Ireland claiming the first win for Team Lotus at Watkins Glen in 1961, and Michele Alboreto scoring the final win for the hallowed DFV engine and storied Tyrrell team at Detroit in 1983, a nation largely ambivalent to F1 until recent years has a rich lore to call on.
Here, Autosport’s team of writers pick out their favourite races held on US soil.
1980 (East), Champion’s drive from Jones after Giacomelli stars – Charles Bradley
Giacomelli escapes in the lead as behind Jones is turfed onto the grass. But by the end of the F1’s final race at Watkins Glen it would be the Williams man on the top step of the podium
Photo by: Motorsport Images
A week after winning the 1980 Formula 1 world championship in Canada, Alan Jones put the cherry on top of his cake at Watkins Glen for Williams – but he was forced to work for it and might never have caught the early-race dominator.
This could have been the day that launched Bruno Giacomelli’s F1 career to join the elite of Grand Prix winners, rather than the also-ran he ultimately became. The 1978 F2 champion dominated qualifying, topping both Friday and Saturday sessions, and beating the opposition by 0.789s to score Alfa Romeo’s first F1 pole since 1951!
He averaged over 130mph around the swooping and recently resurfaced 3.3-mile track in upstate New York. In a recent interview, Giacomelli reflected: “By the end of 1980 we managed to have an extraordinary car. Along with Williams, I think they were the best ground effect cars ever built with the sliding skirts.”
Giacomelli aced the start, and although he came under pressure from Nelson Piquet’s Brabham into The Loop on the opening lap, he soon pulled well clear as his qualifying pace had suggested.
Behind him, from the third row of the grid, Jones had lunged past Piquet at the first corner only to run wide over the grass and plummet to 16th. But this was a day he…
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