COTA and V8 Supercars mutually terminate contract

The Circuit of The Americas in Austin, Texas will no longer be hosting a round of the Australian V8 Supercars championship after both parties agreed to terminate the contract which had three years left to run.

The touring car series visited COTA in 2013 as the first major event following the revived United States Grand Prix in the November of 2012. The event, called the Austin 400, was run on the 3.7km club layout, and went down as a success at the time.

However, economic considerations meant that running the race was not viable unless there was a second race in the United States to complement it and cut costs for the teams. The securing of the X Games contract at COTA also caused a scheduling conflict.

As a result, the 2014 race was cancelled, but V8 Supercars promoter James Warburton was keen on returning to Austin for 2015, saying at the time: “The timing of COTA securing the X Games next year led to the mutual agreement of a gap-year before consolidating, planning and returning to Texas in 2015.”

However, in a statement on the series’ website earlier this week, Warburton confirmed that the contract had been terminated.

“We spent a lot of time chasing down ‘The American Dream’ so to speak,” he said. “We had an existing contract with Circuit of the Americas, we’ve terminated that contract, so that’s off the table.

“We would’ve got a twin up, [but] we both looked at the economics and agreed it was better just to terminate.”

COTA’s next headline event will be “Lone Star Le Mans” which sees both the TUDOR United Sportscar Championship and the FIA World Endurance Championship take place on September 20th. The WEC race will start at 5pm local time and finish at 11pm, making it the first ever night race to be held at COTA.

Follow @LukeSmithF1