Verstappen is right about COTA's bumps, and F1 can't keep shrugging

How many times can a circuit be "fixed" before we admit the fix isn't working? Austin keeps testing that question. Again and again the Formula 1 paddock arrives at the Circuit of the Americas, drivers wince, quotes fly, and the sport moves on to the next race.

This year Max Verstappen set the tone early. After Singapore he said that, judging by what he had seen of the track in WEC, it is "incredibly bumpy," and that he would "probably need to order a new spine after the weekend or become like Robocop," according to GPFans. The joke is funny. The pattern behind it isn't.

This is a chronic problem, not a bad year

The record is long. In 2019, RaceFans reported that Lewis Hamilton had a headache after first practice and had to lie down. Pierre Gasly said he felt his back far more than usual. Then came resurfacing before 2020, more work in early 2022, and another round in 2023. That year Verstappen said the track needed to be redone because it felt "better suited to a rally car," as Motorsport.com covered. In 2024, Motorsport Magazine reported that a resurfacing job had skipped a crucial corner. And now, for 2026, the stretch from the entry of Turn 9 through the entry of Turn 11 has been resurfaced, per Yahoo Sports.

Read that list again. It is not neglect. Money and asphalt have gone into this track repeatedly. But repeated patching is exactly what a deeper problem looks like. Circuit boss Bobby Epstein has pointed to the 2015 flood, saying it caused erosion around the pipes under the track, and then heaving and shrinking. If the subsurface keeps moving, new asphalt on top of it is a cosmetic answer. We think the honest question is whether Austin needs a structural solution rather than another round of targeted repairs.

Low-riding cars make "character" an excuse

There's a respectable counterargument, and it deserves credit. Drivers have long split on this. Romain Grosjean called the bumps "pretty cool" in 2019, and Daniel Ricciardo preferred them to something so perfect it feels like a video game. Even Hamilton has said some bumps add character. We agree with that principle: a circuit shouldn't be a billiard table.

But "character" stops being the right word when the consequences are mechanical and physical. In 2023, Fernando Alonso retired after smashing the floor of his Aston Martin, and Hamilton and Charles Leclerc were disqualified for excessive floor plank wear, which Motorsport.com said was also thought to be a result of the rough surface. That isn't texture, that's the track deciding results.

Motorsport.com also noted that Austin's bumps became a bigger concern for F1 after the switch to low-ride-height ground-effect cars in 2022. We suspect today's cars are no more forgiving, though that is our reading of the direction of travel, not a measured fact. The logic is hard to dodge: the less suspension a car has, the more the driver's spine and the car's floor absorb. Hamilton made the same point about the drivers' side in 2019.

A championship shouldn't hinge on asphalt

Here's why now matters. According to GPFans, Kimi Antonelli's championship lead is so large that he could become the sport's youngest champion as early as Sunday. Whatever your view of the title fight, imagine it being shaped by a broken floor, a spin on a bump or a disqualification for plank wear. Nobody would remember the racing. They'd argue about Austin's surface.

That is the risk F1 keeps running. A championship should be earned on merit, and organizers owe the grid a surface where merit is what separates cars. The FIA and the promoter shouldn't treat driver complaints as an annual ritual to be waited out.

Austin's place on the calendar should depend on a real fix

Our verdict is simple. Verstappen is right, and not just because he is loud about it. Drivers with very different tastes, from Hamilton to Gasly to Verstappen, have reached the same conclusion across years. Reports say COTA has again addressed bumps for this race, which is welcome, but a pattern of repeated patching proves the point rather than refuting it.

F1 should ask for an independent assessment of the full track structure, publish what it finds and tie Austin's future place on the calendar to a real fix. In 2023 Hamilton said the drivers, through the GPDA, were open to discussing it and helping, "like maybe not doing the whole thing so it costs a fortune." We hope that offer still stands. Take it. A great layout, which Verstappen said in 2023 he loves, deserves a surface worthy of it.