The Detroit race was created to fill a gap in the American calendar. In 1982 the United States became the first country ever to host three Formula One World Championship rounds in a single season, joining the United States Grand Prix West at Long Beach, California, and the Caesars Palace Grand Prix in Las Vegas. The new Detroit event used a temporary street circuit constructed around the Renaissance Center, which served as the headquarters of General Motors. At 2.493 miles and seventeen corners, the layout included two sharp hairpins and a tunnel enclosing a gentle right-hand bend running beside the river, producing lap times even slower than Monaco.
The rough, demanding course also crossed a railroad track. Detroit quickly established itself as the single hardest race of the year on both machinery and driver. Brakes and gearboxes came under extreme stress: drivers applied the brakes more than 20 times per lap and changed gears between 50 and 60 times per lap through a five-speed manual transmission. At roughly one minute and 45 seconds per lap for 62 laps, races regularly lasted close to two hours. The narrow concrete walls were unforgiving, and even the slightest driver error almost always resulted in retirement. In most editions at least half the field failed to finish.
The 1982 inaugural edition was troubled from the start. Planned Thursday practice was cancelled, the Friday qualifying session had to be postponed, and the grid was determined by Saturday morning times after afternoon rain washed out the second qualifying session.
The 1983 race saw one of the two hairpins bypassed by a revised circuit layout. That same year the event witnessed the final Formula One victory for the Cosworth DFV V8 engine, which had been introduced to the championship in 1967 and spent more than a decade as the dominant power unit.
From 1984 onward the race date shifted from early June to late June, significantly increasing the ambient temperatures drivers faced. The 1984 and 1985 editions were particularly severe, with intense heat accelerating the deterioration of the track surface. In 1986, despite weather that was marginally cooler, Ayrton Senna overcame a tire puncture during the race to take victory, beginning a run that would make him the event's most successful driver. Senna's qualifying lap of 1:38.301 set at the 1986 race in a Lotus-Renault stood as the circuit qualifying record. His race lap record of 1:40.464, set in 1987 driving a Lotus-Honda, remained the benchmark for the venue.
The 1988 edition produced the worst track conditions in the circuit's history. Intense heat caused the surface to break up more severely than in any previous year. The race had already grown unpopular among drivers, and several spoke openly after the 1988 event about their dissatisfaction with the circuit's state.
Formula One's governing body FISA removed Detroit from the schedule after 1988 on the grounds that the temporary pit facilities did not meet required standards. FISA and FOCA sought a permanent pit complex, but the City of Detroit was unwilling to fund the construction. Plans to relocate the Formula One race to a new circuit on Belle Isle for 1989 could not be completed, and the sole American Grand Prix that year moved to Phoenix, Arizona, where it was held through the 1991 season as the United States Grand Prix.
Following Formula One's departure, the Detroit slot was filled by the CART-sanctioned Detroit Indy Grand Prix, which relocated to the Belle Isle circuit in 1992 — the venue that had originally been proposed as Formula One's replacement home.
The Detroit Grand Prix occupied a notable place in the Formula One calendar of the 1980s as an unusually punishing street race in an era of growing safety awareness. In 2020, Italy became the second country to host three Formula One rounds in a single season, and from 2023 onward the United States matched the 1982 feat by holding races at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, the Miami Grand Prix, and the Las Vegas Grand Prix — three distinct venues unlike the single-country triple-header of 1982.
Senna's three consecutive wins from 1986 to 1988 formed the core of his early American successes, the Detroit victories being part of five American Formula One wins he took across six seasons.