JONATHAN MCEVOY charts how Formula One finally cracked America after decades of trying – from racing in a Las Vegas car park to 52 MILLION tuning into the Miami Grand Prix
Now, at last, after seven decades of false starts, Formula One is planting its flag firmly on the American map.
As if to underline a sense of this final frontier being crossed, here this weekend came news that Miami will host a grand prix until 2041. Lewis Hamilton will be 56 by then.
What a turnaround the commitment signalled in fortunes this side of the Pond, 20 years after the non-race that saw the sport booed all the way out of town.
That was the nadir, at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2005. Just six cars competed. Motor racing’s premier series had traditionally been viewed through American eyes as an eccentric European interloper, cerebral and cold, and this farce was the last straw.
The old aphorism has England and America as separated by a common language. The truth of this was comically highlighted during a race weekend when the Indianapolis Star conducted a survey on the streets of the city. Who, they asked, was the British Prime Minister. Rather than answer Tony Blair, the majority said Albert Einstein.
The disconnect was evident on the English side, too. Bernie Ecclestone, the sport’s diminutive puppeteer, said of the States: ‘It’s a big island. They are a little bit backwards because they don’t know what is going on in the rest of the world.’
Formula One has planted its flag firmly on the American map after seven decades of trying
The turnaround has been remarkable after a non-race in 2005 saw the sport booed out of town
Two editions were held in Las Vegas in the 1980s, but were staged in Caesars Palace car park
Still, there was a long thread of history drawing America into Formula One’s orbit and it dated back to only the third world championship race ever staged, in 1950. Only Silverstone and Monaco came before Indianapolis.
Rain curtailed the running to 138 of the 200 scheduled laps as Johnnie Parsons of Los Angeles became the first American to win a Formula One race.
Formula One has dotted around the vast country across 12 venues in the intervening years. None has stuck as a permanent home. Some failed to live up to their billing. Take the first foray into Las Vegas in the early Eighties.
The build-up was fantastic. John Watson, the Northern Irishman who developed an affinity with the States after winning here twice, was swept away on his first visit to Sin City in 1981. ‘I’d never been anywhere like it,’ he remembered.
‘It was a giant entertainment organ for grown-ups. A no-children place.
‘Our rooms in Caesars Palace, with mirrors everywhere, were bigger than the average semi-detached house in the UK and for your gratification and pleasure and whatever you fancied.’
The only hitch was that the race itself was staged in the hotel’s car park. The casino owners in the Nevada Desert resort built by the Mob would not permit anything else. Racing on the Strip was an impossibility then. F1 returned in 1982, and then left. That was that for the time being. Races in Detroit, Dallas and Phoenix followed. Then a nine-year gap before Ecclestone reestablished a hold in Indianapolis in 2000 – the run-in to the all-time low of 2005.
That weekend started controversially. Asked what he made of Danica Patrick finishing the Indy500 in fourth place as a female rookie, Ecclestone said he had what he called a good idea: ‘She should wear white overalls like all domestic appliances.’
Wind forward to now, and you cannot imagine that sentiment being expressed by the current owners, the American conglomerate Liberty Media, who operate according to the straighter-laced mores of the US boardroom.
Michelin tyres struggled at Indianapolis in 2005 leading to seven teams declining to compete
Seven of the 10 competing teams saw their cars return to the pits after one lap of the race
Just six cars competed at the race with Ferrari, Jordan and Minardi all participating
They took charge of the sport for £6.4billion in 2017, promising to turn every grand prix into a ‘Super Bowl’. That, in turn, was language that would never have passed Ecclestone’s lips. Another case of being separated by a common language.
But back to that 2005 weekend. The contention centred on the steeply banked right-hander leading into the start-finishing speed. At lightning speed, it was too abrasive for the Michelin tyres used by seven of the 10 teams. The Bridgestone tyres, in contrast, were equal to the demands. So the remaining three teams – Ferrari, Jordan and Minardi – were all in clover.
Concerns turned more pressing in practice on Friday when Ralf Schumacher’s left-rear tyre blew on his Toyota at 180mph. The German was unable to race.
Cue pandemonium. Max Mosley, the FIA president, refused to countenance a race that included the Michelin-shod cars. The insurance risk, he insisted, was too great a burden for the governing body to bear.
Ecclestone, the arch-pragmatist, was keen to broker a solution. He went from garage to garage, a phone clamped to his ear. He suggested a chicane be inserted. Mosley was having none of it. Nor was Ferrari team principal Jean Todt. His team stood to prosper from the tribulations of their seven rivals, and he obdurately rejected negotiations to find a compromise.
In front of Indianapolis’s giant grandstand and with a TV audience of millions watching across the world all 20 cars paraded out, led by Toyota’s pole-man Jarno Trulli for what should have been the start of the grand prix.
Thirteen cars, again led by Trulli, then filed back into the pits. Just six cars remained on the grid for lights out – those using Bridgestone tyres.
A ludicrous spectacle of a ‘race’ ensued to jeers and emptying stands. Irate spectators turned up to protest at the paddock gates. Police protected the object of their ire – F1 personnel – from the threat of physical retribution for the non-event.
Michael Schumacher claimed victory at the race, but was understated on the podium
Furious fans protested against the race with F1 personnel requiring security amid the outrage
Bernie Ecclestone, who had tried to broker a solution, would help F1 to crack the United States
Michael Schumacher led home a Ferrari one-two with Rubens Barrichello. It was the Scuderia’s only win of the season, and a hollow one at that.
The race returned to Indy twice more, but the public was sceptical. Then, a five-year hiatus before Austin, Texas, joined the circus. After a few financial bumps, the race is a roaring success.
Their involvement began on Ecclestone’s watch and before Liberty’s single greatest stroke of genius, namely their decision to hitch themselves to Netflix and the resulting Drive to Survive series.
It has brought paddock rivalries and skullduggeries to life. It has also made heartthrob heroes of drivers. A new fan base has been created. It no longer solely comprises petrol-headed blokes. Girls, women, people of all ages, are woven into its tapestry.
Miami is a triumph over adversity. Liberty were mad keen to add another US race when they took over, at virtually any cost. Their dream was to stage it against an iconic backdrop. But local residents objected. So it got shunted off to the less salubrious Miami Gardens area and the Hard Rock Stadium specifically.
The first year was beset by teething problems, but now the race is ensconced in the Miami Dolphins’ home, the paddock hospitality units situated on the gridiron that has hosted six (actual) Super Bowls. The stadium will stage World Cup football next year.
Formula One bosses are delighted with progress in the States. They claim 52million fans here, half of whom have started following the sport in the last five years. Average viewership on ESPN has doubled since 2018. More people follow F1 on YouTube in the US than in any other country.
Las Vegas will host its third successive race in November, on the Strip unlike its 1980s forebear. However, there are no plans to add a fourth star-spangled venue to the roster.
New York is a no-go, just as London is. Chief executive Stefano Domenicali is only interested in a Manhattan-based grand prix, landmarks in shot, and too many logistical blockages prevent that.
The US Grand Prix has proved as a success while popularity boomed through Drive to Survive
The Las Vegas Grand Prix will return for its third consecutive edition in November this year
While Formula One has now cracked America, there are no plans for a fourth race Stateside
Los Angeles? It holds the attraction of transporting Formula One to the western shore of this vast land. But the vegan-munching capital of the world is toe-curlingly woke. So, for all F1’s drive towards sustainability, one senses environmental fanaticism inducing too persistent a headache to wear.
Bangkok is a more probable new destination. South Korea, too, were keen on holding a race before political upheaval put Seoul on the backburner.
As for America, Formula One’s next deeper stride into the nation’s consciousness will be the release of the potentially landmark new movie starring Brad Pitt as a driver coming out of retirement – called, err, F1.
Its premiere comes next month in New York’s Times Square. And, given that platform, who then can say, 20 years after the shame of Indianapolis, that F1 is not cracking America?
