Ask Lewis Hamilton, and he'll tell you Austin's Circuit of the Americas is one of the best venues in sport. Ask Carlos Sainz, and he'll tell you the circuit is the blueprint for what a modern Formula 1 racetrack should look like. Ask Max Verstappen, and he might suggest COTA's boss would struggle to walk if he did five laps of the track.
The contrasting assessments reflect the sometimes bumpy reality of running one of Formula 1's most successful events. Fourteen years after Formula 1 first arrived in the Texas capital, the United States Grand Prix is enjoying another monumental commercial success: ahead of Sunday's race, F1 confirmed a record 467,000 fans had attended across the race weekend. Remarkably, circuit boss Bobby Epstein believes the sprawling venue could have accommodated considerably more than its new record figure, and comfortably so.
While Miami and Las Vegas have brought F1's American boom to new audiences, neither's arrival has displaced Austin's reputation as a favourite among drivers and fans alike. Its appeal has always been relatively straightforward: a proper racetrack, enormous crowds and a festival atmosphere that stretches far beyond what happens on the asphalt.
But as Formula 1 has grown, so has the event around it, something which was more apparent than ever before this year. From record attendances to an enormous (and much-debated) new luxury clubhouse overlooking Turn 1, COTA is facing the same challenge confronting circuits across the calendar: how to embrace the extraordinary commercial success of modern F1 without losing the things that made it special in the first place.
"That's why we stopped selling tickets," Epstein told ESPN. "Our biggest boundary that holds us back right now are the roads that access the facility, which are scheduled to be greatly expanded within two years. And I think when that does, we should pass the half-million mark on weekend attendance.
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"I think anyone going to a big event expect traffic, and they expect to wait when they come to a major world-class event like this. But I don't think anyone wants three, and four, or five-hour waits. But if we had sold 25,000 more tickets, we would have run into that. So we stopped.
"And that's our major constraint right now. It's not once they get out here. It's the last mile or so of the highway. So we stopped selling. It's both a good problem to have, and I'd much rather have it that way. I'm not complaining about that. We try to preserve the fan experience, not just while they're on property, but the experience to and from."
The fan experience was an inescapable talking point at COTA this week, with an unmissable new feature in town.
Gondolas and VIPs
Looming over the circuit's iconic first corner was an enormous new addition to the landscape, accessible via six ski-lift gondolas that go up from the paddock, over Turn 1, and back again. It features swimming pools on the roof so that invited guests can watch the racing while submerged in water, while it also boasts corporate hospitality and an almost complete view of the race track.
For some fans, it represented everything wrong with modern Formula 1: a corporate structure for big-money guests. Fans on social media pointed to the famous shot of cars as they round the final corner, with an uninterrupted view all the way up the Turn 1 hill and up to the Texas sky, where a U.S. flag would proudly wave. The new structure was unmissable on TV, as were the gondolas going back and forth, but it should be said, the Big Red grandstand on Turn 1 did not move an inch to accommodate the new building.
Seven-time world champion Hamilton, a long-time fan of Austin's venue and a big advocate of the job Epstein has done in evolving the circuit since its debut, joked that the only thing it had ruined was the previous view of the blue sky as you drove up towards Turn 1. "You just had the clouds and the flag, but you still have the flag," he said, although the flag did have to shift left to accommodate the new building.
Hamilton was unimpressed at the suggestion some fans had been critical of COTA's new feature.
"It's so easy for people to just be always negative about everything. At the end of the day it's an incredible building, the ski lift up to it is pretty phenomenal. What Bobby and his team have done with this track, if you think of the whole place, the fairground, the stage where people perform, it's an unbelievable circuit.
"I think it's one of the best overall circuits, it's super clean, access, getting in, everything. The grandstands, this whole paddock, for me it's one of the best."
McLaren's Oscar Piastri said the only impact it had on him was the first time he drove underneath the gondola, but otherwise had no issue with it.
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"There's a bit more atmosphere, a bit more going on," Piastri said. "Before you kind of looked at the sky. Now you can see a few more people. The cable cars ... The first lap, I was like, OK, that's pretty close!
"But after that, yeah, I mean, I think it adds to the atmosphere in some ways, so it's not changed much."
It is easy to get bogged down by what a giant new corporate megastructure means for the current state of Formula 1, but it's no coincidence more and more circuits are finding ways to accommodate the growing interest from sponsors, partners and celebrities.
There's a simpler way of looking at it, too: COTA's bumper extension to 2034, the longest contract it's ever been given, was largely rooted in the building of the new facility.
"That's part of the deal," Epstein said, referring to the new Turn 1 unit. "F1 want us to build the building. Well, [we said] give us a long enough commitment so we can benefit from it."
COTA - the best circuit going, or a pain in the back?
The circuit, which debuted in 2012, has always been a favourite of drivers, thanks to its high-speed nature and the way it undulates up and down through the Texan soil. "I always say COTA is, out of all the new-generation tracks, by far the most exciting that has been designed, I think, and the most different," Sainz said ahead of the event. "And I think it's a track that a lot of circuits could take as a good example of, with the kind of design it has for overtaking, the kind of ups and downs, the roller coaster feeling. I think normally we tend to always like good old-school tracks, but Austin, even if it's not an old-school track, it feels like one. I think that's why many drivers like it and enjoy it."
The age of COTA's circuit has created a growing talking point around the event, one likely to be a recurring one as long as the circuit is on the calendar. Driver feedback on the bumpiness was mixed, but Red Bull's Verstappen came into the weekend suggesting he would need a new spine to cope with it.
He later revealed he has seen concerning X-rays showing damage to the discs in his lower back from the wear and tear of racing. In response to comments Epstein made to ESPN that everything bar Turn 1 was fine, and that Verstappen would change his mind after driving on the track again, the Dutchman fired back.
"I invite him to drive my car," Verstappen told Dutch media after qualifying second on Saturday. "I think he'd have to get out after five laps and wouldn't be able to walk anymore."
Not every driver felt the same way.
When told about other driver complaints, Hamilton said. "People are complaining, I'm 42 and my back is fine."
The Ferrari driver added: "It is bumpy, but I think it's OK ... I personally like the bumps, I think it adds character to the track, it feels flat and I love the challenge of that. The car is moving and you have to correct it, in a perfect world it would be a flat track, but then there would be lacking character. I think that's what gives this track that little bit more, it's already a great layout, but the bumps give it a bit more."