Sebring, Concrete Runways and a Grand Prix

A bumpy circuit on a wartime airfield in central Florida and home of the 12 Hours, Sebring staged the world championship's first United States Grand Prix in 1959.

Sebring's most famous feature was poured for warplanes, not racing cars. The raceway occupies part of the former Hendricks Army Airfield, where Army Air Forces pilots trained during the Second World War, inland in southern Florida about 110 km south of Orlando. After the war Alec Ulmann, an aeronautical engineer searching for places to convert military aircraft for civilian use, looked at the runways and service roads and saw an American endurance race in the mold of Le Mans. The first race ran on New Year's Eve 1950, the 12 Hours of Sebring followed in 1952 and quickly grew into a major international event, and part of the site still works as an airport today.

The surface is what everyone talks about. Long stretches still use the original wartime concrete, laid in slabs with wide seams, and cars throw sparks as they cross the joins. The ground is flat, with little elevation or camber, which makes the place especially treacherous in the rain, and the long, fast Turn 17 can make or ruin a lap. It is history a driver can feel through the seat.

In 1959 Sebring staged the United States Grand Prix as the final round of the world championship, its only championship round. Bruce McLaren won for Cooper, the first Grand Prix victory of his career, just 0.6 seconds clear of his teammate Maurice Trintignant. Jack Brabham finished fourth and was crowned champion, and Cooper took the constructors' title, so the team left Florida holding every prize on offer. Thin crowds and high costs sent the next United States Grand Prix west to Riverside in California.

Sebring carried on as a cornerstone of sports car racing. Its layout has been rearranged many times around the working airport, and the current Grand Prix course measures 3.740 miles. The 12 Hours remains the main event, reckoned even harder on cars and drivers than Le Mans, the race that inspired it.

Every Grand Prix here

• 1959 United States Grand Prix