There have been plenty of great American Grand Prix, such as say Phoenix 1990, and then some downright rubbish ones such as Indianapolis 2005 where we only had 6 cars entered.  We loved the banking at Indy, but even F1 couldn’t survive a PR disaster of that magnitude.

The Austin Montego, let’s hope the GP in Austin is a bit more exciting, or rather, a LOT more exciting #couldntbeanyworse

So, anyways it’s 2012 now and F1 is to (re)born in the USA – but will it be on a par with Abu Dhabi? Or will the Austin based GP be as fun as a Montego?  Unfortunately we can’t answer that, but along with many of you we’ll be watching it live on Sunday to find out and we can’t wait – with the patriotic stars and stripes run offs, at least it will look more fun than the motoring definition of dull personified.

What we can do is look at some stats. You like stats don’t you?  We do, and thanks to a chap called Jack, more commonly known as the @F1StatMan we can bring you some fantastical statistical goodness. Yee-haaaa!

The GP Circuit

  • 20 corners, 5.5km per lap, 56 lap race, 309km total distance
  • 4th most corners and 4 longest race on the calendar

USA and F1

  • Circuit of the Americas (this year’s brand new track) is the 10th track to host the a Grand Prix in the USA
  • In the 1983 USA GP, McLaren came 1st and 2nd, after starting 22nd and 23rd – the record still stands
  • There have been 33 USA Grands Prix, Ferrari are the most successful team (7 wins) and Schumacher the most successful driver (5 wins)

Some random and bonkers stats

  • Anniversaries – it’s Vettel’s 100th GP (new helmet we think), Renault engines’ 500th GP and potentially their 400th podium
  • It would take good unicyclist over 33minutes to complete a single lap.
  • If you lined up Big Macs (a popular dish in the US) it would take nearly 50,000 of them to complete the lap

We hope you enjoyed this statistical look at the USA Grand Prix, we have give a big Badger salute to the F1 Stat Man for letting us some of his expertly researched data, you can catch more of his work over on his F1 Stat Blog here.

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