When Austin and COTA welcomed Formula 1 back to Texas

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This day in 2012 saw the very first United States Grand Prix held at the brand new Circuit of the Americas facility in Austin, Texas.

Construction of the 3,426-mile track had gone through a troubled history, with work having been stopped altogether for a spell 12 months earlier. The event was even threatened with removal from the FIA calendar.

Fortunately the problems were overcome, and in September the new circuit passed its pre-race inspection by the FIA, meaning the race could go ahead as planned.

COTA was taking over hosting duties from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which had staged the race from 2000 until 2007. It was the second time that F1 had come to the Lone Star state, with the Dallas Grand Prix having been held in the full heat of summer in July 1984.

The inaugural race was won by McLaren's Lewis Hamilton who reaped his 21st career triumph in F1 and his last for the Woking-based outfit. Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari's Fernando Alonso completed the US GP podium while motorsport legend Mario Andretti was on hand to conduct the post-race interviews.

In the following years, Hamilton would go on to win another four times in Austin, exclusively with Mercedes.

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.