2022 U.S. Grand Prix ticket waitlist deposits available, but no word on COTA contract renewal

Austin's Circuit of the Americas hasn't confirmed that the racetrack's 10-year Formula 1 contract has been renewed for the 2022 season, but signs continue to point to yes as the waitlist builds for the possible 2022 race.

While COTA has yet to release its own tickets, refundable deposits for $100 general admission, $250 reserved seats or a $500 shared hospitality deposit can be made now and will go toward tickets when they say they will officially drop in early 2022. Unaffiliated tickets listed on Vivid Seats start at $433 and peak at nearly $8,000 for the race, which brings hundreds of thousands into Austin each year and comes packed with star-studded performances, adrenaline-inducing face-offs and plenty of fanfare to the region every fall.

Although the USGP was included in Formula 1's 2022 season schedule released in October, many worried that the race was 'F1 and done' in the state capital as the tight-lipped COTA leadership continued to list the deal as pending. The 2022 preliminary schedule cited that the race would be "subject to contract."

The track's initial 10-year contract ended after the possibly record-breaking 2021 Grand Prix race in late October. And while COTA chairman Bobby Epstein said he was hopeful that a new contract would be secured, some said the odds were stacked against them: each race requires a hefty $25 million in funds from the state of Texas, which has threatened to halt spending before and hasn't determined if the top-flight race sufficiently boosts the economy.

And a new track getting buzz in Miami added to complications—in COTA's contract with Texas' Major Events Reimbursement Program, the state said it would only provide funding if the USGP remained the only Formula 1 race in the United States.

But Epstein and crew weren't going down without a fight. Epstein, who lauded the long-awaited 2021 race as the "biggest event on the planet this year," seemed to pull through as an estimated record-breaking 400,000 attendees walked through COTA's gates for the 2022 race. Austin-Bergstrom International Airport felt the weight of hundreds of thousands of tourists pouring in as well, breaking attendance records during the USGP weekend.

And with growing interest in North America—aided by a heated battle between rivals Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton and Netflix docuseries "Drive to Survive"—new enthusiasm was pumped into the COTA project.

Epstein said on Oct. 22 that he was "highly confident" that the track's contract would be renewed, but as of Wednesday, Nov. 24, he told Austonia that no updates had been made on the deal.

If the hints prove true, the 2022 race will take Austin by storm once again Oct. 20-23, 2022.