United States Grand Prix
The United States Grand Prix is a motor racing event that has been held on and off since 1908, when it was known as the American Grand Prize. The Grand Prix later became part of the Formula One World Championship., the Grand Prix has been held 54 times at ten different locations. Since 2012, it has been held every year at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, except in 2020 when it was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
History
Beginnings and the Vanderbilt Cup
Inspired by the Gordon Bennett Cup and Circuit des Ardennes races he had competed in, William Kissam Vanderbilt II founded a series of road races in the United States to showcase American road racing to the world. First established in 1904, the Vanderbilt Cup became an institution on New York's Long Island, attracting American and European competitors alike. However, the race was plagued by crowd control problems, which led to spectator deaths and injuries, and the cancellation of the 1907 event. Upon its return for 1908, the American Automobile Association did not adopt the new Grand Prix regulations agreed upon by the Association Internationale des Automobiles Clubs Reconnus. This led the rival Automobile Club of America, an enthusiasts group with strong ties to Europe, to sponsor the American Grand Prize, using the Grand Prix rules. The Savannah Automobile Club of Savannah, Georgia, which had staged two days of successful stock car races on March 18 and 19, 1908, won the rights to stage the event.The Grand Prize era
The Savannah Automobile Club laid out a lengthened version of their stock car course, totaling. Georgia Governor M. Hoke Smith authorized the use of convict labor to construct the circuit of oiled gravel. The Governor also sent state militia troops to augment local police patrols in keeping the crowd in check, hoping to avoid the pitfalls of the Vanderbilt Cup races. The entry for the inaugural race featured 14 European and six American entries, including factory teams from Benz, Fiat, and Renault. In the race, held on Thanksgiving Day, Ralph DePalma led early in his Fiat, before falling back with lubrication and tire problems. The race came down to a three-way battle among the Benz of Victor Hémery and the Fiats of Louis Wagner and Felice Nazzaro. Wagner won the race by the close margin of 56 seconds.Despite the success of the Savannah event, it was decided that the 1909 race would be held on Long Island, in conjunction with the Vanderbilt Cup. However, only the Vanderbilt race was held and the Grand Prize pushed back to the next year. After the 1910 Vanderbilt Cup saw more issues, including the deaths of two riding mechanics and several serious spectator injuries, the Grand Prize was cancelled once again. A last-minute request by the Savannah club saved the race for the year, but only gave one month to prepare the course. A shorter course was laid out, but due to the short notice, most European teams were not able to make the trip. The leading trio from 1908 did make it and American David Bruce-Brown joined the Benz squad. Bruce-Brown won another incredibly tight race over teammate Hémery, this time by only 1.42 seconds. The 1911 event returned to Savannah, and this time the Vanderbilt Cup came with it; the Cup and Grand Prize were to be held together until 1916. Despite the success of the events, public pressure started to mount on the organizers. The use of convict labor and the militia drew criticism, as did the nuisance of closing roads for the event. Two accidents on the open roads in practice, one resulting in the death of Jay McNay, cast a shadow over the event. The American entries dominated the support events and ran well throughout the Grand Prize, after poor showings in past years and once again Bruce-Brown triumphed, this time driving a Fiat.
For 1912, Savannah succumbed to public pressure, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, won the bid for the race. A narrow, trapezoidal course was set up on the outskirts of the city, in Wauwatosa. As in 1911, tragedy struck in practice when David Bruce-Brown was killed after a puncture sent him off the road. On the final lap of the race, Ralph DePalma collided with eventual winner Caleb Bragg, seriously injuring DePalma and his mechanic and ending any chance of a second race at Milwaukee.
The Grand Prize was not held in 1913, after Long Island's bid was rejected and Savannah refused to provide sufficient prize money. Oval racing on board tracks had taken off in the United States, to the detriment of road racing. For 1914, the Grand Prize and Vanderbilt Cup were staged at Santa Monica Road Race Course, near Los Angeles, on an course, with the start/finish straight along the Pacific Ocean. The field was primarily American entries, and the Americans dominated, with Eddie Pullen's Mercer winning by over 40 seconds. In 1915, the race shifted to San Francisco, in conjunction with the Panama–Pacific International Exposition. With the outbreak of World War I in Europe, almost all of the drivers and cars were American, except for a few cars imported earlier. The course was set up around the Exposition grounds and nearby oval track with a boarded main straightaway. Heavy rain began two hours into the race, covering the circuit in mud from the extensive flower arrangements, and warping the main straight's boards. Dario Resta in a Peugeot cruised to a seven-minute victory, and followed up a week later by winning the Vanderbilt Cup. For 1916, the Grand Prize returned to Santa Monica. The race would be a part of the AAA National Championship, which carried a 4.91-liter displacement limit. Although the limit for the Grand Prize was 7.37 liters, no large-displacement cars would enter. The race was the penultimate round of the championship, with Dario Resta leading Johnny Aitken after his Vanderbilt Cup win. However, both cars would be out before halfway. Although Aitken took over teammate Howdy Wilcox's car for the win, the AAA awarded points only to Wilcox, and Resta took the championship.
Post-WWI decline and the Indianapolis 500
The Grand Prize was discontinued after the 1916 event. Between a lack of European participation due to World War I and the growing American interest in oval racing, road racing fell by the wayside. The two Santa Monica events were the only road races on the 1916 championship, and the aborted 1917 National Championship was slated to feature eight events, all ovals and six of them board tracks. The Vanderbilt Cup was revived in 1936 and 1937 and run to Grand Prix regulations; these races were run at the Roosevelt Park Autodrome near New York City but a lack of competition and domination by German Bernd Rosemeyer and Italian Tazio Nuvolari led to the races being a commercial failure.The Indianapolis 500 kept a connection to European racing, running to Grand Prix regulations between 1923 and 1930, and from 1938 until 1953. In the late 1920s, efforts were made to refer to the 500 as the American Grand Prize. The Grand Prize trophy was awarded to the winner of the Indianapolis 500 between 1930 and 1936, when it was replaced by the Borg-Warner Trophy. The race was included in the World Championship from 1950 through 1960.
Sebring (1959) and Riverside (1958, 1960)
In 1957, Riverside International Raceway opened in Riverside, California, about east of Los Angeles. One of its first events was an SCCA National sports car race. For 1958, the race moved to the new, professional USAC Road Racing Championship, and was billed as the "United States Grand Prix". The race attracted over 50 cars and drivers from sports car series in the US and Europe, as well as USAC and NASCAR. Chuck Daigh won in a Scarab, beating Dan Gurney's Ferrari in second place.Russian-born Alec Ulmann staged the first 12 Hours of Sebring endurance race in 1952 at the airport of the rather isolated central Florida town of Sebring, located 1-1/2 hours south of Orlando and Tampa, and 3 hours north of Miami. The track was formed using service roads and runways of Sebring's airport, and it became a round of the World Sportscar Championship in 1953. Buoyed by the success of the 12 Hours, the Riverside sports car race and Formula Libre events at Watkins Glen and Lime Rock Park, Ulmann decided to stage a Formula One race at Sebring International Raceway in 1959. The race was billed as the "II United States Grand Prix", cementing the Riverside race as a part of the Grand Prix's heritage. The race was originally scheduled for March 22, the day after the 12 Hour-race, but rescheduled for December 12, the final round of the season. The race took place 3 months after the previous round at Monza. The starting grid included seven American drivers, but New Zealand's Bruce McLaren, in a Cooper, took his first win in F1 and was, at the time, the youngest driver ever to win a Grand Prix. McLaren took the lead on the last lap of the race when his team-mate, Jack Brabham, ran out of fuel. Brabham had to push his car over the line to finish fourth. By virtue of Ferrari's Tony Brooks finishing third, Brabham and Cooper took the Drivers' and Constructors' championships, respectively. Despite providing an exciting climax to the season, the race was not successful from the hosts' standpoint, the race's isolated location did not help the event's success as the promoters barely broke even. When prize money checks bounced, Charles Moran and Briggs Cunningham paid the money to save face for their country.
Ulmann moved the race across the country to Riverside for 1960. Stirling Moss put on quite a show in his privately entered Lotus by winning from pole position. However, while the driver's purse was enormous, the event was no better received than the previous year's due to a lack of promotion, and proximity to the successful Times Grand Prix. Again Moran and Cunningham would pay the prize money.
Watkins Glen (1961–1980)
1960s
Through most of 1961, Ulmann was listed as the promoter of the USGP; he contacted organizers in Miami and Bill France of the Daytona International Speedway but was unable to reach agreements. In August, racing promoter Cameron Argetsinger, executive director of the Watkins Glen Grand Prix Race Course in the central Finger Lakes region of upstate New York, offered his circuit to the Automobile Competition Committee for the United States to host the Grand Prix. The Watkins Glen circuit, which had hosted Formula Libre events, had similarities to the British Brands Hatch circuit: both had several banked corners and were sited in very green parts of the world. ACCUS accepted on August 28. Watkins Glen would host the United States Grand Prix for the next 20 years, longer than any other location before or since. It would receive the Grand Prix Drivers' Association award for the best-organized and best-staged Grand Prix of the season in 1965, 1970, and 1971. The track would become known as the "Mecca" of American road racing and weave itself into European Grand Prix racing culture.With just six weeks to organize the October 8 event, Argetsinger assembled the field, but was unable to convince Scuderia Ferrari to make the trip, leaving Richie Ginther and recently crowned World Champion Phil Hill out of their home Grand Prix. Innes Ireland took a surprise win, his first and the first for Team Lotus. Dan Gurney's Porsche was second, and Tony Brooks, racing in his last Grand Prix, took third. Stirling Moss, in his own final Grand Prix, retired with engine problems. Unlike the previous two races, the race was well attended and turned a profit. The race purse was paid in cash, a popular move with the teams after the previous two years' payment issues.
File:Hulme68.jpg|thumb|left|Denny Hulme finished 5th in a McLaren M7A in the 1968 event
1962 saw Briton Jim Clark win in a Lotus; the next three races were won by fellow-Briton Graham Hill, each time in a BRM. Hill's 1964 win enabled him to carry a points advantage into the next and final race in Mexico. 1966 and 1967 saw Clark win; the '66 win was the only Formula One race he won that year, driving a Lotus with an overweight BRM H16 engine. Both the Drivers' and Constructors' championships were clinched at the event by Australian Jack Brabham and his Brabham team. In 1967, Clark dominated, leading comfortably from his teammate Hill and Denny Hulme in a Brabham. In 1968, Mario Andretti put his Lotus 49 on pole position in his first Formula One race. But Andretti retired, and Briton Jackie Stewart won the race in a Ford/Cosworth-powered Matra. Austrian Jochen Rindt won in 1969—his first Formula One race win. He took advantage of Stewart's mechanical problems to pull a huge gap out on the rest of the field. Graham Hill had a much worse day. He punctured his car's rear right tire and the rubber came off the rim. The rubber exploded, sending the Lotus cartwheeling off the course, and Hill was thrown out of the car, breaking both legs.
Due to USGP's position on the calendar near the end of the season, often either the final or penultimate round, championships were often decided before the event. In part to offset this, race organizers offered large sums of prize money; in 1969 the purse totaled $200,000, and when in 1972 it was raised to $275,000, the Tyrrell team earned a record $100,000.