The circuit was created largely to improve Detroit's international image at a time when the city was struggling economically. Its inauguration in 1982 meant the United States held three Formula One Grands Prix in a single season — the only nation to do so until Italy achieved the same feat in the disrupted 2020 season. The layout incorporated part of the M-1 highway (Woodward Avenue) and ran through a flat section of the city with elevation varying only between 577 and 604 feet above sea level.
Drivers had to brake hard more than twenty times per lap and change gears approximately fifty to sixty times, all with manual transmissions over sixty-two laps each typically lasting around one minute forty-five seconds. At least half the field retired in every race, and simply finishing was considered an achievement.
The inaugural 1982 race delivered an immediate moment of history when McLaren's John Watson won from seventeenth on the grid, then the lowest starting position from which anyone had won on a street circuit. That same year saw the last occasion to that point of a reigning World Drivers' Champion — Nelson Piquet — failing to qualify for a Formula One World Championship round.
Michele Alboreto's victory for Tyrrell in 1983 carried additional significance: it was the 155th and final Grand Prix win for the 3.0-litre Cosworth DFV V8 engine, a unit that had debuted at the 1967 Dutch Grand Prix in the hands of Jim Clark. It was also Tyrrell's 23rd and last Formula One race victory.
The 1984 race, won by Piquet, equalled an F1 road-course record with twenty retirements. Post-race scrutineering found impurities in the water injection system of Martin Brundle's Tyrrell, costing the team its results and exclusion from the entire season. The five classified finishers (excluding Brundle) represent one of the smallest finishing fields in championship history, bested only by the 1966 Monaco Grand Prix.
From 1985 Detroit stood as the sole American round on the Formula One calendar after Las Vegas dropped off after 1982, Long Beach switched to CART for 1984, and Dallas lasted only one year. Ayrton Senna dominated the circuit in the second half of the decade, winning in 1986, 1987, and 1988 while also taking pole position in 1986 and 1988. The 1988 race was run in extreme heat and humidity, causing the track surface to break up badly; Senna compared the post-race conditions to driving in heavy rain.
Formula One departed after 1988 when governing body FISA ruled that the temporary pit area did not meet World Championship standards. The United States Grand Prix relocated to Phoenix, Arizona.
Three CART races were held on a slightly modified layout that removed the unpopular chicane immediately before the pit lane. Emerson Fittipaldi won the first and last events; Michael Andretti won the second race and took pole position in all three. The 1991 race was notable for its unusually high attrition-free finish, with nearly three-quarters of the field classified. The race was discontinued after 1991 on economic grounds, with the series moving to Belle Isle for 1992.
The Belle Isle circuit hosted CART and later IndyCar events through 2019, with gaps, before that venue too was vacated. In November 2021 it was announced that IndyCar would return to downtown Detroit starting in 2023 on a new, considerably shorter circuit focused on Atwater Street and East Jefferson Avenue, featuring only ten corners compared to the original's twenty-two. Two corners from the original layout were repurposed in the new design, providing a symbolic thread of continuity with the circuit that once defined the hardest race in Formula One.
1982: John Watson wins from seventeenth on the grid, a street-circuit record for lowest starting position to that date
1983: Michele Alboreto claims the 155th and final Cosworth DFV victory; Tyrrell's 23rd and final win
1984: Twenty retirements equal an F1 road-course record; Tyrrell disqualified from the entire season
1986–1988: Ayrton Senna wins three consecutive Detroit Grands Prix
1989–1991: Emerson Fittipaldi and Michael Andretti share CART victories on the revised layout