How a storm-hit race at COTA almost killed the US Grand Prix

On October 24, 2015, I sat in my apartment in Austin with a group of friends who had travelled to Texas to spectate the US Grand Prix at Circuit of The Americas — but on Saturday, we woke up to a message that heavy rains had made the track too dangerous for fans. Free Practice 3 was cancelled, and qualifying was postponed.

Against all advice, and experiencing the worst FOMO of our lives, we hopped in an Uber and headed to the track anyway, where we lived through a race weekend that almost killed the US Grand Prix at COTA.

2015 US Grand Prix: A near-death experience for American F1 racing

The 2015 United States Grand Prix was set to be one for the history books. Heading into the event, Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton led the championship by 66 points over Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel, but Hamilton’s teammate Nico Rosberg wasn’t far behind the Scuderia.

The 2015 World Drivers’ Championship could very well be decided at COTA — or, we could witness a chaotic race that would stretch the championship out into the returning Mexico City Grand Prix.

But that wasn’t the only hype point. Alexander Rossi had joined backmarker Manor Marussia just one race before, in Singapore, and he was about to be the first American to ever compete at the US Grand Prix hosted at COTA.

That was a big one for me and my friends. That summer, us three Americans jetted off to the Austrian Grand Prix with the specific intention of seeing Rossi compete in GP2. We turned up decked out in hand-painted banners and all things Americana — enough to earn us a visit to Rossi’s garage. We were more than ready to see him compete in an F1 car just months later.

But as race day approached, the weather started to look awfully grim. I was living in Austin full time, as I was in my second year of college at the University of Texas, and in the build-up to race day, I religiously checked the forecast before I walked to class.

Things weren’t looking good. Down in the Gulf of Tehuantapec, south of Jalisco, Mexico, a tropical depression was rapidly intensifying, taking on the moniker of Hurricane Patricia as it neared landfall. While forecasters couldn’t be certain just yet, they were quite sure the hurricane’s path would drag plenty of rain up into south-central Texas — and into Austin right in time for the US Grand Prix weekend.

What started off as slight annoyance (as I’d just spent weeks convincing my friends from England, Boston, and Chicago to fly to Texas for a race that would inevitably take place in warm Texas sunshine) quickly turned to worry.

When Hurricane Patricia made landfall, the mountainous terrain of Mexico ripped the storm apart, but even if the intensity had died down, long bands of rain were still going to pelt COTA with more rain than could normally be expected in October.

On Friday, we braved some light rain to enjoy practice, but as dawn broke on Saturday morning, conditions took a turn. It was absolutely pouring rain, to the point that my friends and I made the frustrating decision to stay home that day.

See, we’d gotten up bright and early because at that time, early risers could run to COTA’s amphitheater and secure wristbands that would earn you access to driver autograph sessions. We had been planning on arriving well before the gates opened in order to secure our spot in line. But there was no joy in loitering in the rain; we’d wait until later.

As I brewed coffee for my dejected pals, word came in from both Formula 1 and COTA that the track would be closing its doors until noon. Fans were advised to stay away for their own safety.

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It was massively disappointing, but there wasn’t much we could do. We watched a few drivers do exploratory laps around the track, but mostly, we had tuned in to listen to commentators lament the rain-drenched nature of the track.

But then, as we watched, I spotted something.

“There are people in the Main Grandstand,” I said.

Sure enough, we took to Twitter to find posts from folks who were braver than us, and who had lined up in front of the gates to secure an autograph wristband. They’d turned up before the track had announced its closure for the day, but many of them didn’t have anywhere to go.

Their cars were stuck in the mud. They’d taken a shuttle bus to the track that had stopped running. They’d hailed a cab or an Uber, but now, no one was around to pick them up. COTA had to bring those fans into the track and provide them shelter.

“Do you think they’d let us in if we showed up right now?” I asked.

My friend Remy responded, “Well, there’s one way to find out.”

Against all better judgement, our group of four took an Uber to COTA, our poor driver navigating through inches of water that had pooled on Austin’s highways. When we arrived at the gates, no one was there to stop us from entering — and so we began our trek from the main gate near the Turn 15 complex up over the Turn 1 hill and down to the Main Grandstand.

As seasoned veterans of rainy races, my friends and I turned up in ponchos and stashed our cell phones in sandwich bags as we journeyed through rain so hard it was physically painful. I distinctly remember trying to livestream our walk, only to give up because no one could see anything.

But we did it. We were there. And when we arrived in the Main Grandstand soaked to the bone, we had no idea we were about to enjoy one of the most memorable days at a race track, ever.

Yes, conditions were miserable — but there were a few hundred fans just like us who were ready to stick it out, and concessions were open under the main stand. We hunkered down for a long day, hoping the rain would let up at some point to let us see a soaked qualifying session.

Around 11 a.m. local time, COTA issued a statement saying fans could begin the trek to the race track; at that point, F1 fully expected qualifying to take place, even though there didn’t appear to be a break in the rain at any point throughout the day.

Quali never happened… but plenty of other things did. Resident American Alexander Rossi headed out to the pit lane to wave at fans and toss a football. Carlos Sainz and Max Verstappen played 10-pin bowling with cans of Red Bull, then let their fathers sit behind the wheel of their cars.

Red Bull Racing drivers Daniel Ricciardo and Daniil Kvyat popped out for some ballroom dancing. Several crew members fashioned paper boats to send them out through the rain that had pooled into a stream, or attempted to row down it in a handmade boat.

Formula 1 failed to outright cancel qualifying for over three hours, instead choosing to delay the session by one hour after another. It was an organizational failure of the highest degree — but for the fans that had turned up, I think there was plenty of magic to be found.

During the seemingly infinite delays, my friends and I leaned over the grandstands to heckle at the IndyCar drivers who were in the paddock that weekend. We spent hours laughing and swapping stories with other fans at the event. Sure, our fingertips had turned into raisin and we had completely forgotten what it was like to be warm — but we were making memories.

And the day only got better for those fans at the track. In order to compensate for telling fans to show up for a qualifying session that never happened, COTA and F1 agreed to open the pit lane up to the folks who had been in the grandstands.

That was magical. Unthinkable. My Rossi-repping friend and I both got selfies with the Manor Marussia driver, and team boss Graeme Lowdon let us take a photo with Rossi’s pit wall sign and front wing. Further down the grid, other drivers signed autographs, and crew members distributed hats. After an hour, we were finally escorted off the property — but we knew we had experienced something incredible.

The only problem was that Sunday was miserable. We turned up early once again, finally watching qualifying before committing to our normal General Admission spot on the Turn 1 hill, but the facilities were a disaster.

All of the grassy GA zones had been trampled into thick, slick mud; as we hunkered down for the race, I lost count of the number of people I saw lose their footing and slide through the muck. There was nowhere to sit, and up at the concessions stand, the offerings of cold beer and frozen cocktails failed to appeal.

The race itself was fantastic, and we saw Lewis Hamilton take his third championship — but the excitement of the event got lost almost immediately afterward.

See, COTA’s fan parking lots are unpaved. Due to the rain, they’d turned into mud pits, and so fans with parking passes had been instructed not to drive to the track and instead to take one of the shuttle buses to and from the track. Those buses dropped fans off at a downtown location after the race.

The problem? There weren’t extra buses to compensate for the sudden influx of people needing a ride on the shuttle.

My friends and I lingered after the race, soaking up the post-Grand Prix track invasion before heading off to the shuttle area. There, we found a line that stretched interminably into the distance. We listened to the entirety of the post-race concert from our spot in line and finally made it back to downtown Austin well after sunset.

Despite spending multiple days standing in the mud, it didn’t quite occur to me for several months that the US Grand Prix could be in threat as a result of a freak storm.

As it formed, Hurricane Patricia broke records for being the strongest hurricane ever measured in the Western Hemisphere, and it absolutely doused Texas in life-altering amounts of rain. All of Houston’s downtown area had been closed off due to the storm, while flood waters in Dallas were strong enough to derail a freight train.

Outside of Galveston, winds were strong enough to ground an oil tanker. In just one day, 10 to 12 inches of rain had drenched Austin — roughly one third of the city’s annual rainfall total, all at once.

As 2015 drew to a close, rumors seemed to suggest that COTA’s future was in doubt. Bobby Epstein, the longtime promoter of the USGP, called the race “financially devastating” and added, “To use a technical term, I think we’re screwed.”

“We lost millions on concessions,” Epstein added, “and we suffered from some fans having such a bad experience they won’t be back, though I hope we can change their mind.”

A bevy of other complicating factors began to add insult to injury.

In 2015, F1 added Mexico City to the calendar for the first time in years. At that time, roughly 40% of the US Grand Prix audience was composed of fans who had travelled up from Mexico, but with the addition of a race there, the 2015 US Grand Prix was supposed to be a litmus test to see how many fans the track could attract on its own.

The crowd, which was already expected to be small, had been whittled away even further due to the weather conditions.

Further, a change in Texas’ government also threatened the race. Formula 1 asks tracks to pay a sanctioning fee in order to host a race. COTA’s $25 million sanctioning fee had long come from Texas’ Major Event Trust Fund, which is a large pool of money the state can access in order to host big events like the Super Bowl.

But newly elected governor Greg Abbott determined that $25 million was far too much to spend on Formula 1. In December, he announced that he would slash funding to $19.5 million — and because COTA had faced such great financial losses, the track couldn’t make up the deficit.

Bernie Ecclestone, who was then in charge of Formula 1, wasn’t interested in cutting a deal. If the state didn’t pay its sanctioning fee, then Texas simply wouldn’t host a race. The event was tentatively scheduled on the 2016 calendar, but with an asterisk.

As a local F1 fan, the whole situation was devastating. I’d chosen the University of Texas as my school of choice in large part because it could keep me close to COTA — but without F1, there was no way the track would be able to sustain itself.

It wasn’t until March that we finally received confirmation that the 2016 US Grand Prix would actually happen. Governor Abbott had been persuaded to put up the money for the sanctioning fee, while COTA had spent the winter reworking its policies in hopes of attracting fans.

First and foremost, if more than two inches of rain were to fall in the 24 hours before the start of the race, COTA would refund 105% of all three-day weekend passes purchased before August 1 — but those fans would still also be allowed to attend the rainy Grand Prix. And the tickets for the weekend overall had dropped in price, the hope being that a low price would encourage skeptical fans to take the plunge.

At that time, COTA had only teased an impressive music line-up for the 2016 race, but weeks later, the track confirmed its headlining act on Saturday night would be none other than Taylor Swift.

The upgrades didn’t just work — they also set the tone for the incredible event the US Grand Prix has become. When I head to COTA now, I can see vestiges of that 2016 event everywhere: In the impressive infield super stage, in the ever-improving amenities, in the evolving concessions options.

Looking back, it’s shocking how close we came to losing this definitive event, all thanks to an unexpectedly fierce storm. Has the USGP failed to return in 2016, the F1 landscape as we know it now would look drastically different.

When you’re watching the race this weekend, take a moment to remember that 2015 race — and the track’s resurgence in 2016.

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