Sweat dribbles down the necks of Formula 1’s twenty drivers as they skid across inky asphalt. North of 100 degrees, the track surface temperature is scalding enough to melt thin ribbons loose from the Pirelli tires spinning on track.
As far as Central Texas temperatures go, an 80-degree October afternoon at the Circuit of the Americas, the speedway just outside of Austin, is a mild start to the track’s weekend festivities planned around the Formula 1 U.S. Grand Prix. But sitting next to a black tarmac without shade can feel sweltering, and fans are the unfortunate bunch left red-faced.
Austin, like most U.S. cities, falls prey to the urban heat island effect. In cities with more pavement and fewer green spaces, sunlight is absorbed rather than deflected, creating a concentrated cocoon of warmth. Heat from cars, factories, and air conditioners only turns up the dial on the thermostat.
The Circuit of the Americas’ 3.42-mile tarmac track is a textbook example of a heat island. Small pockets of foliage line the perimeter, providing little protection from heat and wind. During Friday’s practice session, spectators dotting the lawn held umbrellas overhead as chrome race cars crested the hill and reflected the glinting sun. After a few minutes, fans began to look sweaty and uncomfortable, their bedazzled cowboy hats no match for the stifling heat. The perfume of gasoline, stinging spectators’ nostrils, also didn’t encourage much cooling.
But COTA is attempting to change that. When Formula 1’s Texas host began planting trees along the track’s twenty corners, the subsequent smattering of a grove looked like a half-hearted attempt to mitigate the impact of plowing 1,500 acres of rolling hills to build an asphalt racetrack. But as the canopy fills out, the trees will drive down trackside temps while making nearby residential streets more livable. It’s part of the speedway’s commitment to offsetting its carbon footprint—something that COTA has worked on with Travis County, the City of Austin, and local nonprofit TreeFolks since 2010, when it first broke ground fifteen miles southeast of downtown.
For Formula 1 drivers, shade can be the difference between crossing the finish line first and a premature trip to the pits. The sport is no stranger to extreme weather, but the 2023 season marked a shift: The Emilia Romagna Grand Prix—nestled in northern Italy—was canceled due to rising flood waters and the Miami Grand Prix looked like it might not push through after the street circuit filled with knee-deep water three weeks before the race. The upper echelon of motorsport was feeling the effects of a changing climate.
At last year’s Qatar Grand Prix, heat became more of an occupational hazard than driving 200 miles per hour. Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll nearly blacked out from heat exhaustion while sweeping around the track, Williams’ Logan Sargeant called it quits sixteen laps shy of the checkered flag, and Alpine’s Esteban Ocon emptied his prerace meal into his helmet. The decision to race in Qatar was simply “too dangerous,” McLaren driver Lando Norris said. No driver has blacked out at COTA, but Austin–Travis County Emergency Medical Services reported a spike in heat-related calls at the track during last year’s U.S. Grand Prix race weekend.
Heat heavily dictates performance at the speedway, where surface temperatures reach upward of 122 degrees. Last year the race was a contest of thermal management as much as speed. Sunday’s race featured a last lap shootout where tire wear was the main storyline. “Track temperature has quite an important influence on how the tires perform,” Tom McCullough, performance director for the Aston Martin F1 team, said. “The softer the [tire] compound, the more temperature sensitive it is.”
At tree-dense racetracks like the Azerbaijan Grand Prix street circuit, teams take two track surface temperature measurements “so you can see where the track is hot and where it’s cool. It can vary ten to twenty degrees between the shade and direct sunlight,” McCullough explained.
Formula 1 has pushed the boundaries of technology; a space race featuring high-octane machines bending time to their benefit. Commuters have the sport to thank for developing regenerative braking and the buttons on a steering wheel. And while inventive cooling mechanisms built into the cars help regulate tire temperature, shade is still the most effective way to keep tracks from overheating.
In Texas the sport’s greatest tech in its attempt to adapt to a warming climate isn’t a thousand-part robotic solution. Rather, it’s the promise of saplings. Adult trees also act as a windbreak, something COTA lacks. The gusty conditions are an added challenge for drivers piloting touchy machinery. By 2026 the track aims to cut wind and heat exposure by planting hundreds of trees for an amusement and water park that’s being added to the existing karting facility and mini golf course, said COTA spokesperson Kate Strange. “We recognize the dual benefit of enhancing the spectator experience with shade and contributing to the environment,” she said.
COTA has also paid to have thousands of trees planted across Del Valle, the small city between the track and Austin-Bergstrom Metropolitan Airport, and it plans to extend its tree-planting efforts to underserved areas of Austin to fund the city’s goal of reaching 50 percent urban tree canopy cover by 2050. In 2022 COTA partnered with TreeFolks to plant hundreds of saplings in Richard Moya Park, a nearby green space situated in a low-income neighborhood with scant canopy cover.
Low-income, nonwhite, and historically redlined neighborhoods in East Austin are among the hottest across the city, and have little tree cover to mitigate traffic pollution and direct sunlight. Although Austin has 41 percent tree canopy cover citywide, the Montopolis neighborhood, where 82 percent of residents are people of color, has just 26 percent tree canopy cover. St. John–Coronado Hills has a similar story: a median household income of $41,000 with 21 percent tree canopy cover. Across I-35, wealthy enclaves like Westlake and Northwest boast tree coverage of 69 and 59 percent, respectively.
The disparity is much more than a comfort or quality-of-life issue. Minimal shade and tree cover exacerbate heat and asthma-related health problems, while limited green space paired with large swaths of concrete and asphalt create concentrated pockets of heat and air pollution.
Heat kills more U.S. residents each year than hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods combined. Last year was the worst for heat-related mortality in the nation’s history, with 2,300 deaths, according to the Associated Press. Some suggest that the harmful effects of extreme heat contribute to roughly 12,000 premature deaths in the U.S. annually because of preexisting conditions caused by heat.
Austin–Travis County Emergency Medical Services responded to 234 heat-related calls in June 2023 alone, and heat killed 279 Texans the year prior. Austin’s approval of a citywide air-conditioning mandate aims to ease heat inequity, but funding for tree canopy growth can help lower temperatures overall.
And while Austin is no exception, it is unique, insists Travis County Parks forester and former TreeFolks executive director April Rose.
“In this part of Texas, there are a lot of different factors that have led to inequities in canopy,” said Rose. “Some of the dynamics are related to socioeconomic disparities and environmental justice issues and disinvestments in that part of the community. But some of it is just ecosystem.”
The city is further bisected by landscape: dense oaks grow to the west while the Blackland Prairie formerly covered the east before farmland crept in. The grasses home to Texas, acting as a carbon sponge, now represent the rarest landscape in the state. Once spread across 12 million acres, the grasses now cover only 5,000 acres, according to Rose.
Climate change also threatens the canopy, according to Andrew Smiley, TreeFolks’ current executive director. The 2011 drought slashed tree coverage statewide by 10 percent, and piles of mulch chips churned from downed trees during last winter’s ice storm still occupy Austin’s water treatment plant, creating a mini mountain range visible from TreeFolks’ headquarters.
The nonprofit attempts to prepare residents for the realities of climate change, including extreme weather events and heat, by focusing on equitable reforestation, or looking at underresourced neighborhoods through satellite imagery and providing residents with free trees and the resources to maintain new growth. TreeFolks has planted over three million trees in Central Texas with funding from the City of Austin and partners like COTA.
On Sunday the nearly 150,000 spectators at the U.S. Grand Prix got a taste of a daily nightmare for Austin residents.
The Texas speedway hosting a glitzy motor race and tree-hugging nonprofit seem mismatched. But as Formula 1 fans seek shade, drivers grind their tires, and East Austin residents sweat out the days, trees become an indispensable technology. Or, in the words of Rose, “trees are this engine.”
