Austin track bumps out of control - Verstappen

Max Verstappen says the bumps on the track that hosts this weekend's United States Grand Prix are "unacceptable" and "out of control".

The Dutchman said drivers had complained about the condition of the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, and attempts by the organisers to resolve it had not worked.

Red Bull's Verstappen said: "I love this track, I love this place. It's one of the best layouts ever and it's one of the best venues, best city to be at.

"But for me the bumps are unacceptable. Over time they've been grinding a little bit here and there but it's just putting a plaster on the big problem.

"But that of course means you need to really fully open up the track. That costs a lot of money and time but that's the only way to get rid of it because these bumps are not natural and they are out of control."

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The track is built on former marshland and that has made it difficult for organisers to keep it in good condition, but the four-time champion rejected that as a reason not to try to solve the issue.

"You can use the excuse that the soil is the problem but then you should have known that and you need to make sure that you reinforce it more," Verstappen said.

"Last year, for example, you pull around 5-6G in a corner, but I had some impacts, vertical load, which was over 9G on my spine, which I can tell you is really not fun, and especially the older you get, you think about that more and more."

Verstappen said the problem was likely to be exacerbated this year because although the cars from 2022-25 had lower ride-heights overall, the way the cars are run under the latest regulations means they are running lower in corners than last season.

That's because of the switch between having the front and rear wings open in drag-reduction mode on the straights and closing in corners means the cars drop down towards the ground when they brake.

"You bottom out way harder, because when the wings close and the ride-height comes down, under braking is actually a very stressful moment, and I know around here in some places, it's very bumpy under braking," he said.

"Especially when it's like these kind of awkward bumps, not just bumps from the track getting older, but the surface underneath the soil just moving up and down, sometimes (it's) very hard to expect, or if you're like a tiny bit offline, you don't know what is there, because no-one really drives here sometimes.

"I can tell you from the checks that I've done from my spine, the bottom end doesn't look that great.

"I know that's part of racing. I know that can be part of sport, but it's also further damage from the cars that we had the last few years.

"And now if we continue with finding this acceptable to drive on, then you are going to suffer with that much more."

World champion Lando Norris, of McLaren, backed Verstappen's opinion, saying: "The regulation of building a new track, the tolerances you have to be within are pretty small. It certainly doesn't fit anywhere close to what those regulations are now.

"It's an old track, not a new track so it's pretty bad. There's a lot of places I need to take headache tablets before I go out simply because it's so bumpy and you're hitting your head pretty hard against the headrest and things because of the bumps so it's certainly not a nice thing. There's not much we can do. I mean, we complain about it so it's stuff we've brought up many, many times but there's only so much we can complain about things. But he's right."

But Mercedes driver George Russell said: "It's bumpy, but I think it's just part of racing. I'd say my general view is F1 tracks probably need to be repaved every couple of years just to make it a bit more consistent. Because we're going to tracks now where Tarmac's coming up, it's falling apart, it's causing more issues than not.

"Not ideal, but not much we can do."

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