AUSTIN, Texas—Outside Austin, there is a highway that passes in front of the Circuit of Americas—the host venue for the Formula One U.S. Grand Prix—where the speed limit is 85 mph (137 kph).
That is the highest posted speed limit in North America, according to The Globe and Mail's Peter Cheney.
On Wednesday, though, I didn't even have to leave downtown Austin to experience those speeds. In the shadow of the Texas State Capitol, I took a spin with Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel in Infiniti's new Q50 Eau Rouge concept car.
Vettel and his teammate, Daniel Ricciardo, took turns racing up and down Congress Avenue, alternating between the 2011 championship-winning RB7 and the Q50 Eau Rouge. Four city blocks were closed off for the event, with fans lining the route five-deep to see the Red Bull drivers put on a fantastic two-hour show.
As you can see in the video, Vettel was trying to get the car to drift, but it wasn't cooperating. As Ricciardo joked in a press conference before the event, though, it is Vettel himself who is to blame for any issues with the car.
He is Infiniti's director of performance and was involved in the development of the car.
Robert Daley, who covered the early years of F1 for The New York Times, told a story in his book Cars at Speed about the Ferrari mechanics refusing to ride with the team's drivers if they took the wheel when they had to bring cars from the factory in Modena to Monza for testing.
Phil Hill, the first American world champion, complained to Daley that "they treat us like children," even though they are driving "at a perfectly safe speed."
Daley noted, though, that "safe to Hill on the Modena-Milan autostrada, which is wide, flat, straight and empty, is whatever the car will do flat out."
After spending just two minutes in the car with Vettel, I understand how those mechanics felt.
The fans were standing just a few feet from the flying Q50, protected by a loose metal fence, as Vettel weaved back and forth, pushing the car as much as it is possible to do in a four-block stretch of road.
It was great fun in the car and afterwards I was able to stand in the smoke while both drivers pulled doughnuts in the RB7, the V8 engine screaming.
That actually seemed to be one of the highlights for them, as they noted earlier that the team doesn't want them doing any of those maneuvers in their current race cars, given the restrictions on the number of engine parts each driver can use in a season.
With Vettel leaving Red Bull at the end of this year, Ricciardo may take over his role at Infiniti and with the development of the Q50 Eau Rouge. "There's a lot of work to do," he laughed in the press conference, patting Vettel on the knee.
Both drivers looked like they were enjoying themselves all day, signing hundreds of autographs, posing for selfies and carefully picking fans out of the crowd for rides in the Q50.
I asked the Infiniti PR team how many people were at the event, and they estimated 25,000 to 30,000, which certainly seems realistic. Considering it was the middle of a workday, that is an impressive testament to the way Austin has embraced F1 in just its third year in the city.
With the F1 cars and the Q50 Eau Rouge blasting around downtown, the sport probably made more than a few new fans on Wednesday afternoon, too. If the current trajectory of the Austin race continues, they may need a few more blocks cordoned next year, which would be fine with me. Then Ricciardo and Vettel's replacement, Daniil Kvyat, can really get those cars up to speed.
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