F1 diary: United States Grand Prix Head off early for a rare Heathrow start, from where Mark and I face more than 10 hours in a Houston-bound United Boeing 777. About 100 seats remain free and exit row berths can be purchased for an extra few dollars. Bonus legroom is hardly essential for someone who has never exceeded the lofty median of 5ft 9in, but I yield anyway. It's a comfortable gateway to the joys of US immigration. A slight confession here (at the risk of a possible bollocking next time I try to enter the States): I didn't renew my media visa on this occasion and arrived with the standard ESTA waiver. I don't tell any outrageous fibs at the frontier and confirm I'm here to watch the F1 race, but am surprised to be asked how much my ticket cost. "Nothing," I say, "it was arranged through a business contact." I'm told that's always the best way and waved through with a smile. We haven't booked a hotel - Houston being large enough to have zillions of the things - but Paul McCartney is playing a gig and there are two massive conventions taking place, so casual assumption proves to be our undoing. There appear to be no vacant rooms anywhere in the city, so we head towards Austin - an exercise complicated only mildly by the fact our rented satnav seems incompatible with the supplied cable. The battery is almost flat, too. We cover about 40 miles before finding accommodation - and even that's the last available room. We'd hoped to discover a flavour of the American South, but spend the first night eating in an almost deserted Italian restaurant on the fringe of an industrial estate. Welcome to Texas. November 14 We'd more or less established our bearings before the satnav expired, so head off once more in the general direction of Austin. There's no rush, though, and we're not sure when Tony will catch up. His most recent email tells me he's flying into Austin via Atlanta, but the next text I receive informs me he's just touched down in Detroit. It's a bit like one of those bird-tracking exercises you see in wildlife documentaries. We amble along the highway, pausing to look at a roadside classic car lot - an immaculate 1956 Ford Thunderbird drop-top for the equivalent of £17,000, or a rusty Nash Metropolitan for about threepence - before a swift lunch break and on towards Austin. All along the route, birds of prey swoop and dip above the carriageway: we haven't yet scratched the surface, but it feels like a good place to be. The original plan - through the friend of a friend of a friend - was to stay at the track in a motorhome that forms part of Steely Dan's touring fleet. Strange, but true. That was scuppered when somebody implemented a $15,000 parking fee - and for that kind of money I'd rather have half a Ford Thunderbird. A hotel has since sketchily been arranged from Thursday, but tonight we find a room at the Quality Inn & Suites, just across the road from the local airport. It's comfortable, affordable, has complementary wifi and lies about a 20-minute cab ride from the city centre. With Tony not due to arrive until later in the evening (as far as we know), Mark and I head first to the Circuit of the Americas, to complete a track walk, and the layout and facilities are mightily impressive. The climate is pleasant, too - a much better idea having the race now than in June, the date originally proposed, because that's when temperatures nudge into three figures. Inspection over, we hail a town-bound taxi and fall in love with the place almost immediately. It is vibrant, friendly and benefits from live music drifting through the open window of almost every bar. And there are lots of bars. It has a feelgood factor that all too many host venues lack (although Korea might be OK if they demolished the track and rebuilt it close to Seoul). If ever you happen to be passing through, try the Iron Cactus Mexican restaurant on 6th Street. Don't bother with a starter and a main, though: one course should suffice. November 15 Tony now having turned up to complete the set, we settle our bill and head towards our pre-booked hotel. First, though, we visit the airport to see whether Avis can supply the correct sat-nav cable. An amused parking attendant points out that there's nothing wrong with the sat-nav, but that the operator is clearly an idiot. That'll be me, then. I'd been so busy trying to make the cable fit one socket that I'd failed to notice another. We are now able to head straight to our digs, where we discover there's only one bed between three. We're told that there's no charge for cancellation, but that we're unlikely to find anything else at short notice. I look on-line and find a room at the hotel we've only just left, so less than half an hour after checking out we're checking back in, although the rate has obviously trebled overnight (standard practice throughout the world when F1 is nearby). Spend most of the day at the track, listening to media briefings and catching up with bits of Autocourse, then return to the hotel. Tony is busy doing whatever Tony does, so he orders a pizza while Mark and I head back to the Iron Cactus, this time with Andrew Benson from the Beeb. Order half as much food as the previous evening, but it's still more than enough. November 16 We're accustomed to leaving racetracks in the dark, but it's not often we drive in before sunrise. Action starts early in Texas, though, and a big crowd is anticipated - even on a Friday. Media-room catering tends to be a bit hit and miss in F1 - at one end of the scale you have Singapore, where you can eat as much as you want as often as you like, and at the other you have Monza, which used to have one water-cooler between 400 journalists (although croissants and coffee were added in 2012). America has always been generous in this regard and the COTA is no exception. Breakfast, lunch and dinner are all available, with tortilla chips in between. As is customary, I spend the first day trackside, taking snaps and observing the different cars' body language. The best bit, though, occurs between the two F1 sessions, with practice for a 30-strong group of historic grand prix cars, from an ex-Chris Amon Ferrari 312 (1969) to an ex-Keke Rosberg Williams FW08C (1983). Modern cars might be infinitely more efficient, but they don't have the same visual or aural appeal. It's very impressive that a 2.4-litre V8 can be made to function at 18,000rpm, and that (most) teams can complete a whole race season using only eight such engines, but do they sound as sweet as a 3.0 Ferrari V12? No, frankly. It's probably the best first day I can recall at any new F1 track. The old cars play their part, but so does the effervescent ambience. Mark and Tony intend to head into town in the evening, while I plan to catch up with a few bits of prose. Traffic towards Austin is horribly congested, though, so three middle-aged blokes end up sitting in their hotel room and ordering a Chinese takeaway, washed down with a bottle of Pinot Grigio from the garage next door. It's much better than you'd imagine, believe me. November 17 Head off once more under cover of darkness as the pace of the weekend intensifies. Spend the morning jumping in and out of media shuttles, trying to over as much of the circuit as possible before settling at a spot suitable for appreciation of historic machinery. Pity the session lasts only half an hour. Qualifying looks like a one-Bull race, but Lewis Hamilton rises to the challenge and comes within a tenth of matching Sebastian Vettel's pole time. Vettel's title rival Fernando Alonso is back in ninth. "It's hardly a surprise," the Spaniard says, smiling ruefully. We were seventh and ninth in Abu Dhabi and we're seventh and ninth here. The difference, this time, is that he's slower than team-mate Felipe Massa. For some reason, which he has never been able to explain, the Brazilian often goes well at certain anti-clockwise venues: Istanbul Park, Interlagos and now the Circuit of the Americas. Massa points out that he's attempted a practice start from the dirtier side of the track - and that it feels more slippery than it usually does in the wet. At least, though, both Ferraris will be starting on the clean side... or they would if Romain Grosjean hadn't been penalised for an unscheduled gearbox change. A major talking point lurks just around the corner... We all have to work into the evening, so for the second straight night we eschew the delights of Austin for a Chinese takeaway. We suspect Lewis Hamilton might not be doing this. November 18 Reach the circuit at 7am and tuck into yoghurt, fresh fruit and croissants. We've not been there long when the murmurs begin: Ferrari is said to be contemplating a voluntary penalty for Felipe Massa, to move Fernando Alonso up one position and put both its cars on the clean side of the track for the start. Rumour soon becomes reality: Ferrari breaks a seal on Massa's gearbox - and in the letter of the regulations that symbolises that the unit has been replaced, even when it hasn't, so he gets a five-place penalty. Some consider this outside the spirit of the regulations, but I view it as pragmatic thinking that might just keep the team's talisman in the title hunt. And that, after all, is the primary objective. It might be tough luck for some, who are now obliged to shift to the dirty side of the grid, and Red Bull is asked whether it thought of sacrificing Mark Webber in a similar manner, to move Alonso back across to the dirtier part of the track. "We never considered it," says team principal Christian Horner. If everybody did it, the next thing you know Alonso might have ended up on the front row. For all the fears that it will be like starting one half of the grid in the wet and the other in the dry, the difference is not that pronounced. Alonso rises straight from seventh to fourth, though, so Ferrari's strategy has borne fruit. That later becomes third when Mark Webber suffers Renault's latest alternator failure. The event attracts more than 250,000 fans over three days and almost 120,000 for the race itself. The atmosphere is fantastic, a blend of enthusiastic locals and sing-song visitors from Mexico and Venezuela. Their passion is rewarded with a race to savour, a cat-and-mouse contest in which Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton leave the rest far behind. It's impossible to guess where the balance of power lies, but Vettel then loses momentum lapping Narain Karthikeyan's HRT and Hamilton is able to pounce. The result is enough to clinch Red Bull's third straight world championship for constructors, but Vettel leads Alonso by only 13 points with 25 still available. Fourth place in Brazil will be enough for the German to take a third world title, while Alonso needs to finish on the podium to have any chance at all of doing likewise. You wouldn't bet against either of them, but the weather always introduces random elements at Interlagos - and the long-term forecast hints at rain. We remain at the track until all deadline work is complete - but the slightly early start enables us to get away shortly before 11pm. With the circuit having supplied a spicy pasta salad, we have the luxury of being able to opt for sleep rather than a takeaway. November 19 It's a slightly cloudy day in Austin as I write - probably quite warm outside, but I'm sitting six inches from my hotel room's air-con unit. We're all staying locally for a couple of days, before the 10-hour haul to São Paulo (Mark and I only - Tony is going from Austin to Atlanta then Brasilia and São Paulo, he thinks). And if you're wondering why this is a particularly short paragraph, it's because I want to head outside to explore...