The last time F1 driver Mark Webber went to Austin, Texas was to visit his friend, seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong. Now Webber is looking forward to returning to Austin to race on the Circuit of The Americas, which he judges to be an awesome track.

“I know the city reasonably well,” Webber said of Austin. “I went there in 2003 and did some cycling. The track looks awesome. I have only seen the animation but it looks awesome. It is a little bit old school, which is good, because there are some quick corners.”

The Circuit of The Americas will stage the United States Grand Prix on November 18.

“The Americans will embrace F1 well,” Webber said. “They have been screaming out for F1 race for a while. It will be nice to go back and put on a good show.”

Webber drives for Red Bull Racing alongside 2010 and 2011 Formula One World Champion Sebastian Vettel who predicts the race fans will see a tight battle for the championship this year.

“It would be wrong to go into this season and expect 2011 to happen again, as in getting into the lead early and having a very big gap to other competitors in the championship,” Vettel said. “So I think it will be very, very tight this year and everything else would be a surprise.

Webber is looking forward to returning to Austin to race on the Circuit of The Americas

“Looking at the cars, there’s not much room we have left to play with for designers and to find something extra. The last two years we have had two big things taken away, the double diffusers, plus, for this year, the system around the blown exhaust. So we are missing that and therefore I think it’s difficult to really create a difference. We’ll see; obviously we hope our car is better than all the others but it will be difficult. I think the cars will be fairly similar, as in the gaps will be even closer than they have been.”

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner agrees the fight will be tight this season.

“On the grid this year we’re going to have six world champions,” Horner said. “McLaren have a strong team: they’ve got strength and depth and two world class drivers. Fernando Alonso: everyone knows his capability, and Ferrari also being a great team. We have Kimi Raikkonen coming back as well; Mercedes also look like they’re going to be competitive. So I think F1 is set for an exciting year. At Red Bull Racing our goals and objectives are to try and stay ahead of our rivals and build on the success that we have (had) and build on the lessons that we’ve learned in 2011.”

Vettel and Webber are testing the new 2012 Red Bull-Renault RB8 at the Jerez circuit in Spain. Webber is in the car for the first two days while Vettel will drive it for the final two days of the test session.

Former Red Bull F1 driver David Coulthard has visited Austin and the Circuit of The Americas. He drove a modified Red Bull F1 car on unpaved sections of the track.

“I think F1 will like Austin,” Coulthard said. “I think the Austin is the right place. Geographically it is the right place.

Horner also likes the Austin scene.

“It looks a great venue to have a grand prix,” he said. “It looks like construction work is coming along, and from what I’ve heard it is a great city. I think it will be great for F1 to be back in the USA. We are really looking forward to it. America is a crucial market for F1 to conquer. And it is great news to be heading there this year. It should be a great race from what we have seen from the circuit layout. It will be a fantastic event.”

While he has overseen the creation of the Red Bull cars that have won so often in the last two years, Red Bull’s chief technical officer Adrian Newey won’t offer up any predictions for just how competitive the RB8 will be in 2012.

“People often ask just before the new car runs, what’s the expectation for this year and my answer is always, I have absolutely no idea,” Newey said. “We know what we have done through the winter, we know how we have developed the car but we have absolutely no idea what everybody else has done, with the regulation changes and restrictions then it’s quite a different game to the end of last year. Have we made as much improvement as others, more, less? It’s impossible to know.

“There is always trepidation when we start pre-season testing, and pre-season testing itself is very difficult to read from. If we are hopelessly uncompetitive to another team then we will probably realize it, if there’s two or three of us that look broadly similar then it will be very difficult to pick actually who is the quickest out of those. So it won’t be until we get to Melbourne qualifying that we’ll really get more of a feel for it.”

The race in Melbourne, Australia kicks off the F1 season and its world tour that will bring Red Bull, Vettel, Webber to Austin in November for the first United States Grand Prix since 2007.

In order to reserve your spot on the official Circuit of The Americas waitlist for suite and select seating opportunities, a $100 per account deposit and contact information must be submitted at the following link: http://bit.ly/SelectSeatingDeposit

Source: Circuit of the Americas