Make F1 popular in the United States

Formula One is probably the most popular form of motorsport in Europe, where a majority of its races are, with growing interest from the emerging markets, such as in Asia and the Middle East. Also, Brazil has been very successful in the sport and has a popular grand prix.

However, the sport has often struggled to properly break into the US market, even when there were two races year in the States. While this situation will (hopefully) return in 2013, what divergences will be necessary to make F1 the most popular form of open-wheel racing in the US whilst still racing in Europe and Asia?
 
The U.S. has it's own sports. So a, sport that is not one of them is going to have a hard time getting into a very insular market. If you can get the advertisers to change their tune, you may have a chance.
 
In recent history, avoid the colossal fairly that was the 2005 US Grand Prix.


One of the main problems (that I've heard), is that F1 has an image of being an "upper class" sport, unlike NASCAR, which is seen as more relatable, and therefore more popular (especially in the area of my current residence).

For the record, I'm a casual fan of both F1 and NASCAR, but the purest form of racing is obviously WRC :).
 
The closest analogue is Indy racing, perhaps have more crossovers between the two, after all the Europeans have produced a number of winnnning Indy cars and a few more abortions.
 
The closest analogue is Indy racing, perhaps have more crossovers between the two, after all the Europeans have produced a number of winnnning Indy cars and a few more abortions.

To be fair, the biggest change which might help F1 in North America is the United States staying involved. The Americans came to European motorsport in a big way in the 1960s (Ford in particular aiming high) and the Europeans came to Indianapolis at about the same time. There were plenty of good American Formula One drivers in the 1960s and 1970s, but after Mario Andretti headed out of F1 for good in 1982, aside from Eddie Cheever's dogged determination and single seasons for Danny Sullivan (1983), Michael Andretti (1993) and Scott Speed (2006-2007), America has never been involved in Formula One. Riain is right about the Europeans being involved in Indycars, but there is much more global involvement in the Indycar Series than there is American involvement in F1.

Best way to make F1 popular in the United States IMO would be for good American drivers to keep showing up and kicking ass in F1. A few PODs could shift this. One of the better ones would be Walter Wolf running a second car in 1977 and having Bobby Rahal (who drove for him in 1978) joining Jody Schekter at the team, and both of them doing well. Another possibility is Rick Mears taking the offer by Bernie Ecclestone to drive for Brabham for 1983 - as Nelson Piquet was 1983 world champ for Brabham, the possibility would exist (and be quite possible) that Mears would be the Formula One world champ in 1983. Archibald's idea of Donohue surviving is another good POD. (Hell, go nuts and get all three of them, and have Mario stick around a little longer, and you could have five Americans - Mario, Rahal, Mears, Sullivan and Donohue - in F1 in 1983....)

What also might help is that F1 gets a good permanent home after Watkins Glen goes belly-up. After Watkins Glen closed and Long Beach left the F1 circuit after 1983, the races bounced through a number of atrocious street circuits in Detroit, Dallas and Phoenix until the last one in Phoenix in 1991. Perhaps after Watkins Glen closes in 1980 the Formula One USGP moves to one of America's best road courses of the time (Road America or Riverside would be my choice) and stay there, getting a good, solid following. Having the Indycar series grow in stature wouldn't hurt F1, either.
 
IIUC the US offered massive prizemoney compared to F1 in the 60s, that's why the likes of Maclaren went Can Am racing and Lotus went to Indy. Perhaps if F1 could offer a bigger purse then Americans might get involved, perhaps just the US GP could offer a big purse to get Americans involved.
 
IIUC the US offered massive prizemoney compared to F1 in the 60s, that's why the likes of Maclaren went Can Am racing and Lotus went to Indy. Perhaps if F1 could offer a bigger purse then Americans might get involved, perhaps just the US GP could offer a big purse to get Americans involved.

You are correct that in the Can-Am and F5000 days (as well as Indianapolis in the 1960s and early 1970s) that was the reality, and that idea would work until the end of the 1970s, but after that the budgets in F1 go upward so fast that that idea is just not feasible. Ferrari in its' 2001-2004 glory days spent in that four year period 1.5 Billion pounds on Formula One, equivalent at similar exchange rates to about $2.4 Billion US. And that was just on Formula One racing, not any of their GT Racing programs or road car research, development and production. Michael Schumacher was one of the highest-paid athletes on Earth in 2004, making $54 million that year. Even a backmarker team struggling to make the grid in F1 now spends the best part of $75 million a year. There is no way any F1 promoter puts up the kind of prize money to lure teams in.
 
Having Graham Hill live longer wouldn't go miss either. The only man to have won the F1 world championship, Le Mans and the Indy 500
 

Archibald

Banned
Best way to make F1 popular in the United States IMO would be for good American drivers to keep showing up and kicking ass in F1. A few PODs could shift this.

One of the better ones would be Walter Wolf running a second car in 1977 and having Bobby Rahal (who drove for him in 1978) joining Jody Schekter at the team, and both of them doing well.

Another possibility is Rick Mears taking the offer by Bernie Ecclestone to drive for Brabham for 1983 - as Nelson Piquet was 1983 world champ for Brabham, the possibility would exist (and be quite possible) that Mears would be the Formula One world champ in 1983.

Archibald's idea of Donohue surviving is another good POD.

(Hell, go nuts and get all three of them, and have Mario stick around a little longer, and you could have five Americans - Mario, Rahal, Mears, Sullivan and Donohue - in F1 in 1983....)

FOUR of them - add tallthinkev excellent Graham Hill idea. Interestingly, Donahue and Hill died only five months appart, in the last half of 1975...

From all this I think an all-out US assault on Formula 1 might be feasible with a POD early in the year 1975.

The 80's gonna be fun - the five top american pilots versus the infamous quartet of Prost, Piquet Senna and Mansell,and eventually Rosberg and with some butterfly effect, a surviving Gilles Villeneuve.
 
TV schedules

US sport is essentially made for TV, and F1 races mostly happen in the wrong time zone for US viewers.
Plus F1 is often dominated a team with a superior car, making it appear boring for US viewers used to manipulated formulas that prevent single team domination. If Indy had allways been like in 1994, when Penske smashed the oposition, it would have lost popularity quickly.
 
I'm not convinced you can prior to today, but in the future...

Open wheel racing is dying in the States, the ludicrous oval racing is killing drivers. F1 is coming back big time, a race in Texas this year, with New Jersey coming in next year and the likelihood of a Mexican race bringing the number of races in the US time zones to at least 5.

So definitely the potential to create interest and to build a following, especially if Indycar continues to struggle. Have the first couple US races be considered classics, a few more of the big names in Indycar pull out etc and you'll be half way there.


Further off a competitive American driver would help, not sure if there are any particularly talented ones in the junior categories in Europe at the moment, ideally a new Andretti or similar 'big' name that would appeal to American audiences would be great, but they really need to be in Europe from an early age as frankly the standard in the open wheel series in the US is nowhere near good enough to produce a top drawer F1 driver.
 
I'm not convinced you can prior to today, but in the future...

Sure you can. At one point, the USGP was the best-paying event on the F1 schedule, as Riain pointed out. The work of Phil Hill, Mario Andretti, Mark Donohue, Dan Gurney and others made it very clear that Americans can compete well in F1. Le Mans in 1967 drove the point home forever - the Europeans watched Dan Gurney and AJ Foyt, in a Ford GT40 with a NASCAR motor in it, hand the Europeans their heads on a platter, and that after saying loudly that Foyt, an oval specialist, wasn't skilled enough to race at Le Mans competitively.

Open wheel racing is dying in the States, the ludicrous oval racing is killing drivers.

This year's Indycar Series, which is rather more competitive than in years past, says otherwise. They just got their new cars and new engines, and newcomer Chevrolet is making Honda work for their wins. (Lotus, on the other hand, has embarassed themselves repeatedly....) The new bodywork and car changes are coming for next year, and Dan Wheldon (RIP :() is one of just six drivers to die in open wheel oval accidents in the last two decades. (The other five were Jovy Marcelo, Scott Brayton and Tony Renna at Indianapolis, Greg Moore at Fontana and Paul Dana at Homestead.) Six in 20 years sounds like a lot, but the deaths of Moore and Renna were freak accidents, and oval racing has always been more popular than road racing in America, though the latter is now gaining popularity. America has two competitive top-level sports car racing series now, too.

F1 is coming back big time, a race in Texas this year, with New Jersey coming in next year and the likelihood of a Mexican race bringing the number of races in the US time zones to at least 5.

I don't doubt that Austin and New Jersey will do well, but the former is almost certainly going to hose other racing and the latter is still a total unknown, though the track layout looks excellent. F1's history of street races in America is not good to say the least. I'm hoping for success, and I think Austin will easily get it, but I'm not convinced about New Jersey. I'd love to be wrong, mind you. As for Mexico, not happening. There isn't a good track in Mexico that can host F1 aside from Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City, which now has a baseball stadium in the middle of it (Champ Car actually ran a course through the stadium) and wouldn't be anywhere near F1 standards. Having an event in Argentina, which their organizers REALLY want, would add another one in our timezone, too.

So definitely the potential to create interest and to build a following, especially if Indycar continues to struggle. Have the first couple US races be considered classics, a few more of the big names in Indycar pull out etc and you'll be half way there.

Indycar isn't big enough to have its best carry F1 into the big leagues, and nobody in Indycar aside from maybe Penske and Ganassi have anything like the $$$ to go into Formula One. And more to the point, Indycar now has professional management and unity, two things it hasn't had in two decades. It's got nowhere to go but up, and I quite firmly believe it will go that way. And more to the point, I think if anything big success for Indycar as well the American Le Mans and Grand Am Rolex Sports Car series will help F1 in North America.

Further off a competitive American driver would help, not sure if there are any particularly talented ones in the junior categories in Europe at the moment, ideally a new Andretti or similar 'big' name that would appeal to American audiences would be great, but they really need to be in Europe from an early age as frankly the standard in the open wheel series in the US is nowhere near good enough to produce a top drawer F1 driver.

Again, I would beg to differ this. The F1 circuit has tons of worthy pilots who don't find rides in Europe and who then go stateside. Dario Franchitti, Tony Kanaan, Dan Wheldon, EJ Viso, Takuma Sato, Sebastien Bourdais, Mike Conway and Adam Carroll all worked hard and well towards F1 seats (Bourdais got one on account of his demolition of the Champ Car field in 2004-2007), but there are lots of them who have come to the Indycar series. Some have thrived, some haven't. I think if you took guys like Ryan Hunter-Reay, Graham Rahal, Marco Andretti, Charlie Kimball (who was a regular in Europe for years) and J.R. Hildebrand and put them in F1 they would do just fine. Marco is extraordinarily talented but luckless, Rahal has got a B-team Ganassi ride which isn't working for him or Kimball. The others, however, are kicking ass. Hunter-Reay has won three straight in the Indycar series, Hildebrand lost the 2011 Indy 500 because he crashed out of the lead in the last corner. Not talented enough? Pffft. I'd take RHR or Hildebrand or my hometown boy James Hinchcliffe over anybody in the bottom half of the current F1 grid any day of the week.
 
Okay, straight away, Hildebrand for Maldonado? :p

Not a bad trade, but I think trading him for Sergio Perez or Paul di Resta would be a bigger benefit to F1. Mind you, if that had happened, Hildebrand would have have become the first American Formula One race winner in over 30 years....
 
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