The Circuit of The Americas' bumpy surface remains a contentious issue even though the latest generation of Formula 1 cars were intended to ride less harshly. Ahead of the 2026 US GP, Max Verstappen described the Austin track's bumps as "unacceptable" and "out of control".
This triggered a chorus of agreement from other drivers including Lando Norris, who explained that he takes headache tablets as a precaution before track sessions on circuits like this.
"If you build a new track now, the regulations of building a new track, the tolerances you have to be within are pretty small," he said. "It certainly doesn't fit anywhere close to what those regulations are now, let's say. But it's an old track, not a new track.
"So, yeah, it's pretty bad. Like 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 headrests because of the bumps.
"It's certainly not a nice thing. There's not much we can do – I mean, we complain about it, it's stuff we've brought up many, many times.
"There's only so much we can complain about things, but he [Verstappen] is right. He's certainly right."
To gain FIA Grade 1 status, a track must meet stringent requirements about its layout and safety facilities. The surface itself is tested for bumps with a four-metre straight edge, and a tolerance of plus or minus 3mm is permitted. Once tracks have been homologated, their Grade 1 certification lasts three years.
The Circuit of The Americas was last resurfaced in 2024, but the heavy clay-based soil in this area is prone to shrinking and expanding as the seasons change, so it has already been partially resurfaced in some areas or had bumps ground down in others.
Previous generation of F1 cars made heavy weather of COTA's bumps
Photo by: Getty Images
Drivers became particularly vocal about the surface quality during F1's ground-effect era from 2022-2025, because that generation of cars had to run very close to the ground and be stiffly suspended to maximise the effect of the underbody aerodynamics. In that period F1 also changed from 13-inch to 18-inch wheels – a move intended to reflect modern road car trends but which had the side effect of removing some of the cushioning effect of the tyres.
When the latest technical regulations were drawn up, one of the intentions was to make the cars less reliant on low ride heights. That may have been the case earlier this season but, as the development war has drawn on and car performance has converged, ride heights have got steadily lower and the cars are starting to bottom out more often.
"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 the asphalt is coming up, it's falling apart, it's causing more issues than not," said George Russell.
"We're not an IndyCar or an F2 car that run their ride heights reasonably high, our ride height's 10mm at the end of the straight, a centimetre from the ground, so any tiny bump you really feel it.
"The side profile of the tyres now, since we've been at the 18-inch, is substantially smaller. The circumference of the tyre is the same, the circumference of the rim is far greater, so you've lost all of that effective suspension in the tyre, which was a damper, which we kind of don't have anymore.
"So, again, not ideal, but not much we can do."
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