“It could be quite complicated this weekend”– Bumps at COTA may complicate US Grand Prix claims AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly

Bumps at COTA may spoil the race in Austin, as recent complaints by the MotoGP and volatile surface flags concerns for Formula 1.

The Circuit of the Americas is built is regarded to be unstable. Thus, the bumps at the track have been present since the arrival of F1 over there due to the uneven surface.

While attempts are always made to improve the conditions of the track, the problem still manages to reoccur. The recent visit by MotoGP compelled some drivers to complain about the poor surface.

The request has been made to resurface the most affected areas on the track before MotoGP returns in 2022. But looking over the issues raised by MotoGP, the FIA’s F1 race director Michael Masi has established contact with the circuit and asked for grinding down the worst of the bumps.

Worried about the apparent issue in hand, AlphaTauri driver Pierre Gasly has raised his concerns with the bumps and claimed it might complicate this Grand Prix weekend.

“I think it could be quite complicated this weekend,” said the Frenchman. “Having watched MotoGP a few weeks back, the bumps, which were already pretty bad last time we raced there, seem even more severe now.

“It will require some sort of compromise on setup, but we won’t really know until we get there. I’m not particularly worried about it, because our car is working well everywhere at the moment and we just have to avoid any problems waiting to ambush us, so that we can continue to close in on Alpine in the championship.”

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COTA will solve concerns

On behalf of the FIA, experienced US racing official Tony Cotman was sent to inspect the track to recce the track. And Masi has assured that all concerns will be addressed.

“What we have actually done is that since the 2019 F1 event a large part of the circuit was resurfaced to counter some of the issues that we saw in 2019,” explained Masi.

“The areas that were raised by the bikes are different areas to those that were resurfaced. And Tony Cotman, who’s one of the FIA platinum circuit inspectors, has been out to Austin already during the week, and done a report.”

“And the circuit doing some changes for us to sort of address some of the concerns. They’ll grind some bumps and so forth. But we’ve got some time to do it. So they’ll do what they can within the timeframe.”

About the author

Tanish Chachra

Tanish Chachra is the Motorsport editor at The SportsRush. He saw his first race when F1 visited India in 2011, and since then, his romance with the sport has been seasonal until he took up this role in 2020. Reigniting F1's coverage on this site, Tanish has fallen in love with the sport all over again. He loves Kimi Raikkonen and sees a future world champion in Oscar Piastri. Away from us, he loves to snuggle inside his books.

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