2021 Toyota Tundra 225

Circuit of the Americas (COTA) is a grade 1 FIA-specification motorsports facility located within the extraterritorial jurisdiction of Austin, Texas. It features a 3.426-mile (5.514 km) road racing circuit. The facility is home to the Formula One United States Grand Prix, and the Motorcycle Grand Prix of the Americas, a round of the FIM Road Racing World Championship. It previously hosted the Supercars Championship, the FIA World Endurance Championship, the IMSA SportsCar Championship, and IndyCar Series.

On September 30, 2020, it was announced that COTA would host a NASCAR Cup Series event for the first time on May 23, 2021.^[2] The lower Xfinity and Camping World Truck Series were also added as support events.^[3] On December 11, 2020, it was announced that NASCAR would run the full 3.41 mile course.^[4]

The first and final practice took place on Friday, May 21 at 4:05 PM EST. Zane Smith of GMS Racing would win the pole with a 2:17.395 with an average speed of 89.348 miles per hour (143.792 km/h).

One incident would happen during practice: Brad Gross would spin with 26 minutes left in practice.^[5] Gross would receive damage from the spin and would not set a lap time.

Qualifying would take place under torrential downpour on Saturday, May 22 at 10:06 AM EST. Qualifying consisted of two rounds- the first round would be 25 minutes long, and everyone would have a chance to set a lap time. Then, the fastest 12 qualifiers would move on to the second round- a 10 minute round in which whoever set the fastest time in Round 2 won the pole. While Kaz Grala of Young's Motorsports would set the fastest time in Round 1, Tyler Ankrum would win the pole, beating Grala in Round 2 with a 2:40:401 with an average speed of 76.533 miles per hour (123.168 km/h).^[6]

Logan Bearden, Dawson Cram, Spencer Boyd, Samuel LeComte, John Atwell, Brad Gross, and Jennifer Jo Cobb would all fail to make the event.

There were numerous incidents in qualifying. First, Chase Purdy and Derek Kraus would crash into each other, sending Kraus spinning.^[7] Cobb would crash in qualifying in Turn 13, causing substantial damage to her vehicle.^[8] Samuel LeComte would spin after going wide exiting turn 20, hitting the curbs and spinning.^[9] Cory Roper would spin in Turn 11 after also going wide. Finally, Kraus was involved with another incident, this time with Roger Reuse.^[10]