As the world entered the 21st century more than 20 years ago, sports columnists dubbed NASCAR “the fastest growing sport in America.”
Now this title should probably be awarded to another form of motorsport: Formula 1.
Just a few years ago, the thought of Formula 1 gaining a foothold in the United States would have been laughed at. Competing only on road and street courses, the open-wheel racing series has long been associated with Europe, the Far East, Mexico, Canada, South America and other global hotspots.
American audiences were only interested in stock car racing, and the only open-wheel race that casual sports fans knew was the Indianapolis 500.
But if Wednesday’s announcement of a Formula 1 race, partly on the famous Las Vegas Strip, in November 2023 proved anything, it’s that F1 has found a new home in America.
And it’s here to stay.
Las Vegas will be the third US event to add to the F1 calendar, alongside the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas and the new Miami street race which takes the green flag on May 8th.
While Wednesday night’s announcement came as a bit of a surprise, planning for the race had been underway for several months. And that’s not surprising since Liberty Media, Inc., which acquired ownership of the F1 series in 2017, is headquartered right here in good ol’ USA.
In addition to the three exciting US events, American fans will soon be able to cheer for one of their own on the track.
Already a star and a proven race winner at IndyCar, 22-year-old Colton Herta will test a McLaren car later this year and is already one of the expected drivers for a potential new (or potentially merged) F1 entry in the field of his IndyCar owner Michael Andretti.
If Andretti’s foray into Formula 1 takes place, it will become the second American team in the series. The US also has an existing Formula One team in Haas F1, which debuted in 2016. Haas currently sits fifth out of 10 entries in the Constructors Championship having contested the first two Grands Prix so far this season.
With the sudden interest in Formula One from US fans, teams and competitors, outsiders might scratch their heads at how such a foreign sport suddenly became so popular in a country traditionally unconcerned about international competitions.
The answer is best summed up in three words: Netflix and ESPN.
Formula One: Drive to Survive debuted in 2019 and has become one of Netflix’s most popular programs. The streaming service inked an exclusive deal the year before to produce a docu-series giving a behind-the-scenes look at the sport, and the series has been credited with attracting new fans to the sport, particularly here in the United States USA
Of course, many of the new F1 fans created by Drive to Survive decided to follow the sport more closely.
ESPN comes in as a result.
At the end of the 2010s, it looked as if the “Worldwide Leader in Sports” was about to leave motorsport behind completely. ESPN did not renew their NASCAR contract at the end of the 2014 season, and their NHRA and IndyCar coverage ended after the 2015 and 2018 seasons, respectively.
However, F1 joined ESPN in 2018, and the new broadcast partnership (which F1 offered to ESPN for free) introduced American sports fans to an unfamiliar concept – ad-free coverage.
The partnership obviously worked. Formula 1 is experiencing the highest ratings of all time in the USA. Last season was the most watched in US broadcast history, averaging 949,000 viewers per race.
Last weekend’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix was also the most-watched F1 race on ESPN since the network acquired the rights in 2018 — and the most-watched F1 event on cable TV since 1995.
The show averaged 1.445 million viewers and topped all US cable for several key audience demographics, including the all-important 18-34 age group.
With ratings soaring, multiple races across the US and the likely inclusion of an American driver and team, F1 will continue to grow in popularity here in the US
One has to wonder what the rival and smaller NTT IndyCar series will do with further encroachments into their American backyard through F1. For years, there have been rumors that IndyCar could host a race in Europe – England’s Brands Hatch and Belgium’s Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, also known simply as “Spa” – have been rumored as potential locations for IndyCar to compete.
However, talk about a European IndyCar race that declined significantly after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. In an Autoweek story earlier this week, IndyCar President Jay Frye said an international race was unlikely in the immediate future.
“Right now there’s still plenty of opportunity for us in North America,” Frye told Autoweek. “To get to where we need to be or where we need to go next, the focus has really been on North America.”
But with Wednesday night’s news, plus four of the current F1 circuits having their hosting deals with the series ending at the end of the year, one has to wonder if IndyCar can suddenly dust off those European plans.
And fast!
Follow AutoRacingDigest.com writer Michael Eubanks on Twitter @MEubanks_writer
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