The Official 2012 F1 Thread. Spoilers possible!

It's pretty hard to find much to fault with the race weekend. Getting that number of people in and out of the track is never going to be fast, but for the most part things always seemed to be moving, even the massive lineup for the shuttles after the race. We left our seats at Turn 6 right after the podium ceremony, and didn't get to my car in the parking garage next to the 15th and Trinity downtown shuttle spot until 3.5 hours later. At least an hour of that was simply getting from out seats to the line for the shuttle, which was another 1.5 hour wait.

It does seem as though the shuttle dropoff at the track could have been closer to the main entrance, but based on the exodus at the end of the race perhaps the long walk just helps to spread everyone out a bit instead of having them bottleneck right outside the main entrance.

I thought the most frustrating part was getting to my seats, which were on the backside of the track, and took an hour to get to once we hit the main entrance. I would like to see some sort of a trolley system or something that circles the perimeter with stops at every 2-3 corners. This get everyone a lot closer to their seats without them having to plow through the middle and across the two bridges.

They need a LOT more vendors, and they need to have some people who know what they're doing handling the food and drink stuff. For the most part it seemed to be stoned kids who operated in slow motion and couldn't do basic math. The guy at the Gyro stand fancied himself some of artist and what should have taken ten seconds turned into painful minutes of him contemplating each Gyro like he'd given birth to it. It was maddening to wait in line for water, only to find out from the kid at the stand that they haven't had any beverages all day, but they didn't feel the need to put up a sign or cover the water on the menu sign. Yes, I'm pretty sure I've turned into an old prick at 46!

They definitely got the bathroom thing right! Anywhere on the track you were within 20 yards of a bathroom, and rarely was there a line to get into one.


My g/f and I stayed at a great B&B in Burton, a little more than an hour from downtown Austin, at a bargain $160/night. It was right next door to an excellent french country restaurant called the "Brazos Belle", where we had a fantastic dinner Saturday night. It made the ride in a little longer, but paying $600-700 a night for a shitty room with a 3 night minimum in Austin was just more than I could stomach. I'd do it in a heartbeat for the Four Seasons or W, but not for Motel 6.

The large corner marker signs were a silly example of fashion over form, and you had to often walk around these massive signs with massive lettering to know which corner they indicated, as the lettering overlapped the adjacent surfaces of the square signs.


Next year I'll plan better and make sure I have a parking pass, and probably shoot for seats on the front side by the main entrance. The people I know who had parking passes and stayed in San Marcos seemed to have the best experience getting in and out of there, so I'll probably try that for Moto GP.

As for the circuit and the race itself, I don't know if they could possibly improve upon the weekend. The drivers legitimately seemed to love the track and the entire experience. Considering how much skepticism there was, even six months ago, that this would ever happen, I think they hit a massive home run in Austin.

Reminded me of this:

Man, after all the negativity, it's just great to hear such enthusiasm about an F1 event in the United States!

I'm floored about how good the track looks on TV, and how good the sightlines seem to be from the stands. It's a hilly track and yet spectators seem to have extensive views. This really feels like a precedent-setting design and venue. How amazing is it that it's in the US, the place everyone says doesn't care about F1? Just fantastic.

I don't really understand the tower thing, but heard the commentators mention that other F1 venues want one too. Something about concerts?

I've read a lot of United Statesians complain about the track name. But it's a business and having a name that welcomes people from all of the Americas is a good thing, as the reports from the track seem to confirm.

Thanks for the reports from the ground, they're fascinating reading. Bummer your memory card corrupted, eric2.

I think the Ferrari engine seal thing is a bit sleazy, but such is life in F1. Markjenn, I'll honor you by not harping on the other sleazy aspect of this race! Suffice to say that the 30-second gap to Alonso is a pretty strong statement.

Man, a pass for the lead late in the race? How cool is that? It's as tho the gods smiled on COTA. And I loved seeing the genuine enthusiasm the McLaren guys, up to an including Whitmarsh, had for Hamilton. Nice to see there's no bitterness there.

Turn 1 produced a lot of action. As they say, it's an icon already. Fill Hill? I like it. :)

Concur with previous messages:

The good: Great facility, great race weekend, Austin, friendly hosts.

The bad: crowd management, high prices and excessive dust.

There were problems with credit card transactions. Probably both: not enough drinks and food stands AND their transactions done very slowly.

Initially the police down the street, by the track, had no idea where you needed to go!!!!

We parked at parking lot P. our seats were at Turn 5. It was actually not that bad walking from our seats to the parking after the press conference. The parking lot was pretty blocked, but we were lucky to pick a line that moved ok.
There were many spots where police was needed but not present, instead we found out there were police patrols at two intersections "far" from the track area where there was no traffic at all. At one point we took a turn from 812 looking at the GPS, this decision turned out perfect as we hit pretty much no traffic.

Overall I had a great time and, even if far from me, I'll consider coming back.

I don't know why I have not been able to add pictures here!!!! I'll need to look into privacy settings.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

ps I believe the TV coverage is done by Bernie's TV production company, so the quality of the images shouldn't change next season on NBC. Clearly, a lot of thought went into making the place look good on camera. It paid off!

For the sake of contrast, when I went to Monza in 2006, my walk through the park from my seat at Turn One to the train station, train into Milan, and the three block walk from the station to where I was staying with a friend took about 45min total.

OTOH, nothing will ever top walking to my RV across the street from IMS for the first F1 there, or living in my RV across the main straight from the Corvette pits at Sebring '99.

hard to believe Tilke came up with that track....
maybe they have listened to the comment on the other tracks they have designed recently.


I hope they drop the idea of New Jersey for good after this. A "proper" race track is just so much better all-around.

Bite your tongue! My plans to be in Austin were dashed when I got a gig that put me in Appleton, WI yesterday.
I'm looking forward to taking the NJT train to a F1GP!

pfft.. just take Amtrak to la belle province

According to Autoweek, he didn't Explains a lot!

With Montreal also being an exciting track, North America now has two excellent venues for F1.

Only thing is, it's downright weird being able to watch F1 live in the middle of the afternoon. Discombobulating!

the shame of that is... not being able to fast-forward thru commercials.
the upside was watching the on-boards during commercials.

I wonder / hope that NBC does picture in picture during commercials and Mercedes decides to offer live on-boards at a few more tracks

Sucked for me as for the first time in weeks I was staying in a hotel with Speed, but I couldn't watch because it wasn't on at 6:00 am. I was at work by noon so I had to "watch" on my F1 iPhone app.

Wait? You can watch the race on the iPhone app?

Codewife and I really enjoyed that race. We weren't there, unfortunately, but watched it on DVR.

And, it was exciting enough that my in-laws, who watched the race with us (this being their second ever race, the first being Spa this year) have asked us what we're doing to watch Brazil next weekend. Maybe the track earned a few new F1 fans....

JC

Hellmund and Schwantz deserve major Kudos on that layout. I don't know if they knew the topography of the land when they jotted down the now famous sketch, but if so it was a stroke of genius. If not, it was spectacular good luck.

On my lust.




When I was there last summer NASCRAP was in town so I couldn't even ride my bicycle around the island.


After Monza, two USGP's, and parking on the front straight at Sebring, the only thing left on my racing bucket list is a MotoGP at Mugello or San Marino and a MC trip to France bookended by LeMans and the French GP.

Watch in quotes.

The F1 live timing and scoring app features markers for every car. You can "watch" all markers proceed around the track or select a single car.

It's actually really cool to run it while watching a race. You know what that blowhard Varsha is going to say before he says it, because the Moran pretty much just reads the info as it streams in.

Hey now, I like Varsha! I guess he stuck with Speed because he has more than F1 to keep him employed. If NBC loses F1 at the end of this contract, he would risk being out on the street.

That was from what I have read, the issue with the other Tilke tracks, they have just been run by big financiers that don't really understand racing...

This design was done largely by Schwantz and Hellmund, who are both racers.