Aerial Update on COTA

With just 5 months to go until the inaugural Formula 1 United States Grand Prix, construction at Circuit of The Americas is rapidly progressing as the 900+ acre site transforms daily into a world class facility. 

Formula 1's most recognized photographers Mark and Keith Sutton of Sutton images visited Austin for Formula Expo this past weekend and took to the skies for a look at COTA.  In addition to their photos from their trip which you can see in this weeks issue of GP Week, the Sutton's brought back some aerial footage of the track as well:

The trip includes captions which indicate the turn locations as they circle around the whole location. If you're on the fence about which tickets to get for the race, this video should give you some idea of the orientation of the track relative to your seating.

If you're curious just how far along the circuit has come in a short amount of time, take a look at our aerial footage from March 2011.  This should help you gain some perspective on the amazing progress made by COTA's construction team in just 15 months since we produced the first aerial video of the circuit:

Exclusive: First Aerial Video of Austin Track Construction from The Austin Grand Prix on Vimeo.

EXCLUSIVE: First Aerial Video of Austin Track Construction

Ever since I snapped the first aerial pictures of the future Austin track site out the window of my Southwest Airline flight in November, we’ve been pumped about this next post. An old friend and pilot took us up yesterday to shoot some amazing aerial footage of the track site.

The following video shows the view from our flight path coming from downtown Austin, which is west of the track site. We flew in over downtown Austin and then headed due east over the Austin Bergstrom International Airport (“ABIA”), paused for the commercial flight pattern (while two planes took off, which was pretty cool to watch from above) and then headed south to the track.  The Austin track is situated about 2.5 miles southeast of ABIA.  We proceeded to fly clockwise around the track. It was easy to point out the location from the air as the biggest thing to notice is the large, sand-filled rectangular area which borders the road FM 812 on the south end of the track.  Last week the Statesman reported that the attorney for the USGP project, Richard Suttle "confirmed that the layout for the track has been cleared," but from yesterday's flight it looked to us as though only a third of the Austin land has been graded. Maybe we are misunderstanding the context of his quote. What do you think?

Exclusive: First Aerial Video of Austin Track Construction from The Austin Grand Prix on Vimeo.

More Video and High Resolution Pictures coming soon!!

Soundtrack courtesy of Ghostland Observatory, one of our favorite Austin bands, check them out on MySpace.

A special thanks to Ben and Coy, without which this would not have been possible!