The current home of the US Grand Prix, Austin’s Circuit of the America’s is a fast, flowing switchback that immediately found favour with the drivers. Here’s a candid shot of inaugural victor, Lewis Hamilton, donning the (now-almost-mandatory) race-winner’s Pirelli Stetson, in 2012. In the race, Lewis hunted down the Red Bull of leader Sebastian Vettel, audaciously passing him on the back straight to claim the lead and his final win for McLaren.

The titular soap opera was pretty darn ubiquitous in the 1980s, which may partly explain the appearance of this odd, unloved, one-off race in 1984. In searing temperatures, the track started to disintegrate during practice (hence these impromptu repairs), and the crumbling surface saw no fewer than 12 drivers (including McLaren’s Niki Lauda and Alain Prost) spin into retirement on race day.

Like Dallas, the Detroit Grand Prix was a relentless, unforgiving place – just take a look at those Armco-lined apexes and oddly unsettling tyre-walls! Seen here is McLaren’s Niki Lauda, chasing after eventual runner-up Eddie Cheever’s Ligier. The Austrian duly passed the American, but later locked a wheel into Turn One and retired after hitting the wall. The race was brilliantly won by McLaren’s John Watson.

Yes, there were notable McLaren F1 wins at Indy (who can forget Mika’s 2001 swansong, and Lewis’s victory there in ’07?), but we’re choosing to look back at 2017’s 500, when the famous month of May was pretty much bossed by Fernando Alonso. The Spaniard didn’t manage to clinch victory on his 500 debut (he retired smokily after a sensational run at the front), but at least honours went to his Andretti Autosport team-mate, Japan’s Takuma Sato. 

Ulsterman John Watson always seemed to go well in North America. He won at Detroit in 1982, and sensationally took victory at Long Beach in ’83 after starting a scarcely credible 22nd on the grid. Here he is looking positively Caesar-esque with his laurels perched atop his head after finishing second behind Tyrrell’s Michele Alboreto in the 1982 season finale. And, yes, that’s former Supreme Diana Ross in the photo.

For those of a certain age, the US Grand Prix (West) at Long Beach really summed up Formula 1 in the States, becoming a calendar perennial for most of the 1970s and early ’80s. Here’s James Hunt crashing his M26 on the fifth lap of the 1978 race. Incredibly for James, there are no fewer than three coffee shops offering post-race sustenance. Even more incredibly, it looks like at least two of them are actually open!

It was little surprise that Formula 1 failed to make an impact in the States during the 1980s, the sport seemed to race on nothing else but featureless, square-cornered concrete street circuits. After Dallas, Detroit and Las Vegas, the city-centre track in Phoenix sadly provided more of the same. It was good for McLaren, at least, which won all three Phoenix GPs. Here’s the fully focused Ayrton Senna en route to his second successive win in 1991.

Bruce McLaren earned a podium finish for Cooper in the one and only US Grand Prix held at California’s Riverside track in 1960. The race may have had a short-lived F1 connection, but it was a mainstay on the Can-Am calendar – so here’s a shot of Bruce McLaren in the mighty M8B before his retirement from the 1969 race. Bruce’s team-mate Denny Hulme went on to win it, a feat the McLarens would repeat at every venue that year.

Sebring, too, only hosted one grand prix, famously won by Cooper’s Bruce McLaren in 1959. The flat, airfield circuit, which sits bang in the middle of Florida, went on to become an iconic sports car race, hosting the 12 Hours Of Sebring. Here’s a dramatic shot of Bruce in his T51 Cooper (9) chasing down leader and team-mate Jack Brabham (8).

The East Coast’s greatest track, Watkins Glen nestles in the pristine rolling farmland of upstate New York and was where Emerson Fittipaldi clinched his drivers’ title for McLaren in 1974, and where victory for James Hunt in ’76 moved him closer to contention for the world title against Niki Lauda. Here’s something a little different: Hunt’s iconic M26 painted in the blue livery of beer giant Lowenbrau, as was the habit for the North American races at that time (parent company Philip Morris owned the US brewery that was introducing the brand to the States in the ’70s).